#does that sentence even make sense? my brain is not englishing tonight

[tchouamenii]

the first player in real madrid history to score in his first 4 champions league matches for the club

[blu-joons]

Learn The Language ~ Park Jimin

The sound of Namjoon’s voice calling out for him to enter brought a smile to Jimin’s face, carefully opening up the door to look across at his leader. Namjoon switched his computer off, inviting Jimin to take a seat, noticing the notebook that he held in his hands.

“Do you have some spare time?” Jimin asked as he took a seat, “I’ve got another date with Y/N tonight, and I wanted to ask for your help with a few more English phrases that I could use to impress her.”

Namjoon instantly nodded, slapping his hands against his thighs with excitement. He quickly encouraged Jimin to open his notebook up, keen to help him learn as much as possible, knowing how much of a liking Jimin had taken to you.

“Tell me the things you want to say, and I’ll translate,” Namjoon instructed, paying close attention to each sentence that Jimin said, thinking over in his head how best to translate it. Once Jimin was finished, he grabbed a pen, taking the lid off and getting ready to write.

“Just take it slow with me,” he reminded his leader.

Namjoon nodded, going over the first sentence Jimin had wanted to say, letting you know that he was thankful you agreed to another date. He carefully listened as Namjoon spoke each word out, writing it down on his piece of paper.

“How many dates have you been on now?” Namjoon asked, nodding his head as Jimin held up four fingers, concentrating on his writing.

Although the two of you had gotten by with the basic Korean that you’d learnt, Jimin wanted to impress you by picking up on your language too. Despite having a few of the basics too, he hoped that showing you how much he cared would encourage your feelings towards him.

“If you really want to impress her, you could say thank you for agreeing to go on a fourth date with me,” Namjoon suggested to him. Jimin’s eyes lit up, writing down the extra information instantly, knowing that it would go a long way in impressing you.

Once he’d written it down, he looked back across to Namjoon. “So, I’d say, thank you for agreeing to going on a fourth date with me?” Jimin asked. The silence that came from Namjoon worried him, tapping his elder on the arm.

Namjoon weakly smiled back at him, “you’re almost there, but remember it’s just go, not going, when you put to before the verb. Although I’m sure Y/N will forgive you for a couple of mistakes, you’re still learning.”

Although Jimin knew you’d be understanding of a mishap here and there, it wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted perfection, not just for his own satisfaction, but for you too, to be able to show you how dedicated he was in giving things a go with you.

“To go?” Jimin repeated once again, relieved this time when Namjoon nodded back at him.

He reached out, giving Jimin a high-five. “Why don’t you tell me the other phrases you want to learn, I’m sure we can get through most of them if we keep working at this pace.”

A little over an hour later, Jimin’s page was full of notes from his quick lesson with Namjoon. The sentence he wanted to use were stored in his memory, and if he needed it, it was all written down ready to memorise too.

Jimin couldn’t hide his pride in the smile that he wore, closing his notebook away before looking across to Namjoon, reminding himself just how valuable his leader was.

“I really appreciate you taking the time to help me, it means a lot,” he smiled.

Namjoon pushed him gently, “you don’t to thank me, pabo, I’m always happy to help, especially when it’s something as adorable as your date with Y/N.”

For the rest of the afternoon, Jimin went back over the phrases as he got himself ready, reciting them into the mirror as he fixed his hair, even whispering them to himself as he drove past people on the way to your apartment.

And yet as he pulled up outside, seeing you waiting by the door for him to arrive, it suddenly felt as if everything Jimin had learnt from Namjoon had disappeared, leaving him speechless without a clue as to what to say.

“Jimin?” You questioned, peering through the window, with the door locked.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, quickly unlocking the car so that you could get in and greet him.

His smile was small as you looked across at him, instantly confused as to what was evidently troubling him.

No matter how hard he tried to wrack his brain, the words failed to come from him. He knew you were waiting, hanging on to hear whatever it was that he had to say, and yet as he tried, there was nothing in his memory.

Instead, he simply smiled back at you as he pulled away from your apartment, leaving you bewildered as to what was going on with him and his behaviour too.

“How have you been?” You asked him, trying to break the awkwardness.

Jimin’s eyes flickered across to look at you momentarily in response to the sound of your voice. “Good, and you?” He replied, turning back to the road almost instantly.

Your head nodded, although you were far from certain that anything was good with him. Although you’d only been on a couple of dates, it didn’t take much for someone to be able to pick up on the way that Jimin acted that something wasn’t quite right.

“Are you excited?” He then asked you, recalling the skills he’d used from the many shows he’d performed to keep the conversation going.

“You’ve not even told me where we’re going yet.”

“It’s a surprise, you have to wait and see.”

As the car fell silent again, you suddenly heard a gasp come from Jimin, with your eyes darting across at him, you were surprised to see a smile across his face.

“What is it? What’s happened?”

“I remember,” he chuckled to himself, slowing the car back down and glancing across to you. “Namjoon showed me some words,” he informed you, clearing his throat. “Thank you for agreeing to go on a fourth date with me.”

Your head shook with a chuckle, “I thought something bad had happened you fool.”

Jimin mumbled a quick apology back at you for making you worry when you had no need, relieved that he’d managed to remember.

“How could I not agree to a fourth date with you?” You asked him, “I’m enjoying getting to know you, and it’s excellent practice for my Korean. Sounds as if it’s good practice for you to work on your English skills as well.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, although very little of what you had said made sense to him. “I want to learn to make you happy,” he proceeded to ask, giving himself a few moments to make sure that he’d got his words the right way round for you.

You smiled appreciatively back at him, “and I want to learn for you too. Maybe we could both teach each other, how does that sound?”

“Very good. I like it.”

“Me too.”

---

Masterlist

[3pirouette]

Fic: Hello, Darling (1/1)

Title: Hello, Darling By: TriplePirouette/3Pirouette Disclaimer: They're not mine. Distribution: AO3  Anyone else please ask first :)

Story Summary:  Instead, he reached for his phone. He hit the only button that seemed to matter at the moment.

Her voice was warm. “Hello, darling.”

“Peg,” he sighed, closing his eyes. “Oh, your voice is just what I needed.”

Angst. Satisfies the Fake Dating a square for the Steggy Bingo Bash. AU, obviously.

A/N: Timeline is as close to sort-of right as I can make it for an AU. 2017 is post Civil War, 2016 is during Civil War, 2014 is during AOU, other time stamps should be self-explanatory. I hope this makes as much sense for everyone else as it does to me- this concept was a little hard to get on paper. I wrote this in about... 2 hours? Couldn’t sleep until I got this out of my brain. Also, I’m sorry. Please get some tissues. More AN at the end.

~*~ 2017

Steve flopped on the bed, wiping his forehead. They’d been training, hard, and he was drained. He and Natasha were spending their days whipping the new iteration of the team into shape and spent their nights sweet talking whatever government officials would listen to them while still trying to stay off the grid.

Their position in multiple areas was shaky, to say the least.

When he couldn’t sleep, which was most of the time, he wrote letters to Bucky, who was still in stasis in Wakanda. The letter writing was a calming ritual, and made him feel closer to his friend when he was doing it, but when he saved the letter instead of sending it, it left him feeling a little more alone than when he started.

He didn’t want to move tonight. He felt empty and exhausted and so very, very much like the small man he used to be on the rickety old bed.

He looked at the second-hand laptop, closed and charging on his desk, and turned away. He couldn’t take that feeling tonight.

Instead, he reached for his phone. He hit the only button that seemed to matter at the moment.

Her voice was warm. “Hello, darling.”

“Peg,” he sighed, closing his eyes. “Oh, your voice is just what I needed.”

Her voice was warm, and there was a smile in it. “Well, I’m just a phone call away, as always.”

“Yeah,” he replied, just a hint of sadness seeping through. He took a deep breath and shifted up on the pillows, closing his eyes and holding the phone tighter to his ear. “We were training again today.”

“How are they pulling together?” She asked, bright and interested. “Has Wanda gained more control?”

“Every day,” he replied quickly, a smile quirking at his face. “She’s more powerful than I think any of us were prepared for, even her. She’s still doubting herself, though.”

Peggy chuckled through the phone. “After what she went through, I’d doubt myself if I were her, too.”

Steve rolled to the side, pulling a pillow tight into his arms. “True.”

“Give her time,” Peggy soothed him. “Think about how long it took you to get the hang of your new body.”

He laughed out loud at that. “What, all thirty seconds or so?”

“I seem to recall you crashing through a store’s front window display fairly immediately.” Her laugh was like bells, light and happy. “Though that was followed by months of tests, followed by months of kick lines.”

Steve groaned at the memories. “The tights… and those boots.”

“I rather liked the tights,” Peggy flirted. “Though, the point of my mentioning, is that it took you rather a few months in the field to figure out you could lift a tank, and that became one of your favorite tricks. Give the poor girl some slack.”

“Actually, fitting my entire body behind my shield was one of my favorites.”

“I still don’t know how you do that.” She sighed. “But it is quite a trick.”

“She is getting the hang of it,” Steve relented. “It’s just been… hard.”

“I can hear the weariness in your voice.” She was soft and gentle. Steve closed his eyes and pretended he was wrapping himself around her. “Have you been taking care of yourself?” She sighed when he didn’t answer. “Steve…”

“I don’t know how…” he drifted off, changing course mid-sentence. “I’m tired, Peg. I’m tired of fighting and running but that’s… that’s all that’s left.” He rolled to his back, throwing his free arm over his head, some of the plaster of the wall of the old boarding house falling on his forehead. He wiped it away with a heavy groan of frustration. “Back then, I had so many plans. After the war…”

“We shan’t be going there, darling.” Her voice left no room for argument.

He was quiet for a moment, the emotion boiling up in him. When he finally spoke, his words were soft. “I miss you. I miss you so, so much.”

The pause was almost too long, and it broke him just a little bit more. “I’m here, Steve. Only a phone call away.”

He sat up, frustrated. “For a little while I had it- I had everything. I had you, I had Buck, I had new friends, and I could… I was…”

“You were almost happy,” she whispered. “We’ve said these words too many times.”

“I don’t…” He took a deep breath and let his head fall to his hand. “I don’t know how to move past it. I can pretend I’m ok, but… but I’m not.” He laughed to himself. “I wouldn’t be calling you if I were ok.”

“I’m here for you, Steve,” she replied sharply. “You call me when you need to call me, when you want to call me. Good or bad. I just wish… I wish there was more good.”

“Me, too.” He cleared his throat, sitting up. “Tell me something good, Peg.”

He thought he could hear a smile in her voice. “Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, eh, Rogers? Well, then, I can tell you that yesterday I came across a very silly video of a sneezing baby Panda and no matter what your mood, I promise you’ll feel better if you watch it.”

He pulled the phone away from his cheek when it vibrated in his hand, the video popping up on his screen. He laughed, despite himself.

“You always know exactly what I need,” he mumbled out loud.

Her chuckle was soft, just like he remembered. “Lucky, I guess.”

“I love you so, so much, Peg.” He turned serious. “I wish… I wish I could see you.”

“I love you, too, my darling.” She replied softly. “And I’m only ever just a phone call away.”

He could feel the familiar pangs of depression swirling, and knew talking longer would do him no good. Not tonight. “I should… I should go.”

“Good night then, my love.” Peggy’s words were so full of love he could scarcely believe it. “Don’t wait too long to call again.”

He didn’t answer her, just nodded to himself. “Good night, Peg.”

He pulled the phone away from his ear, looked at it, and tossed it across the bed. Like his letters to Bucky, sometimes he felt worse after talking with her. He laid back on the bed, the springs creaking under him.

He wasn’t going to sleep tonight, not with the way his gut was roiling and the loss so close to the surface. Her voice was always a double-edged sword. Some nights, it was enough to bring him back to life, to remind him of whatever little purpose he felt he had left.

Sometimes, it was only filled with loss and the could-have-beens and should-have-beens.

Sometimes, he wished Tony had never given her back to him.

~*~ 1988

“Anthony, get this blasted thing out of my face.”

“Come on, Aunt Peg, no one is better at telling me what to do than you are.”

Peggy looked up from where she sat at the table in what was supposed to be a dining room, but was often used as an extended work space when Peggy and Howard had to pull long nights. “Under no circumstances.”

Tony pulled a chair up next to her and held out the tape recorder towards her. “Under all circumstances.” He started ticking it off on his fingers. “When I almost blew up the garage when I was eight. First time I got caught with a girl in my room. First time I got caught with booze in my room. First time I tried to create a jet pack. Who yelled at me? You did.”

Peggy pursed her lips at him and turned in her chair. “Concerned correction.”

He smiled, shrugging. “See? Concern, correction… all things I’m going to need in the future.”

Peggy swiveled back and picked up a file, eyes firmly set on the writing though she wasn’t reading anything. “Things you need now.” She didn’t look up. “Can’t you go badger Jarvis? Edwin has far more practice at humoring you.”

He laughed and smiled sweetly, moving the tape recorder in front of her. “Indulge your Godson in an experiment?”

“I seem to indulge you Starks far more than I’d like.” She leaned back in the chair and tossed the file back on the table. “Tell me about it.”

“Well, you see, I actually need you to tell me…”

~*~ 2014

Tony hadn’t looked at these cartridges in years. He pulled FRIDAY up and loaded her, knowing the program would make do for now. He could make some upgrades, and mourn Jarvis, later.

He ran his fingers over the last few cartridges as FRIDAY was integrated into his systems and found one that he hadn’t thought about in decades. It had been so long that the ink was almost faded completely away.

He didn’t need the label to remind him what was on there. He remembered each story, each lesson, each crisp English word with a sharpness that he liked to pretend didn’t exist. It was the only AI that was as old as Jarvis.

Tony laughed out loud. There was no way Ultron would have come to be if this was the AI he’d chosen to run his life with instead of Jarvis. She never would have allowed it.

She never would have allowed half of his shenanigans. She had been right all those years ago: Jarvis had always indulged him more. Aunt Peggy had no qualms about telling him, and often stopping him, when he was about to do something stupid, whereas Jarvis would give him an exasperated sir and follow behind, helping to clean up the mess.

He could have used some of her guidance so, so many times since he built that armor. Before, too, to be honest. He should have revisited her AI years ago.

He should visit her in the nursing home.

He knew exactly why he didn’t.  

He flipped the cartridge onto his work desk and slid the rest back into their box to be stored. Save the world first, tongue lashing from his Godmother second.

~*~ 2015

The icon showed up on his phone one day without explanation. Two hours later the text from Tony was nearly as mysterious.

Click the icon and you’ll be routed to an update on an old project, kind of like a phone call. Totally sanctioned, of course. I think she’ll get a kick out of it.

When he told her one day in the nursing home, she laughed.

“That boy had me record hours and hours of tape,” Peggy smiled. “I wondered if he ever got around to making it. I would have rather liked to have another one of myself around while I was still running SHIELD.”

“So, you did know,” Steve asked, “that Tony made an AI of you?”

Peggy looked at him, her eyes sharp and disapproving. “Of course, I knew. And while I didn’t ever say it, I was quite insulted that he eventually chose Jarvis over me.” She sat up in her hospital bed, gray hair falling in waves around her face. “Dial it up, let’s see what he got right, shall we?”

~*~ 2016

He was still in his suit and tie, his cheeks puffy with the tears he only let himself shed in the privacy of his hotel room. The church had been hard, but letting the coffin settle into the cold dirt had been harder.

She was gone.

And he was alone.

He picked up his phone, intent on checking his flight for the morning when an icon he scrolled past daily caught his eye.

He rubbed his thumb over the edge of the screen, temped.

He checked his flight, but it was perfunctory and he couldn’t recall, by the time his thumb hit the other icon, if it was still on time or not.

Slowly he lifted the phone to his ear. He knew from the few times he’d called at the nursing home with her that there wouldn’t be a ring tone, and that he had to be the first one to talk. “Hello?”

“Steve?”

Her voice through the line was young and vibrant, the way her remembered it from all those years back: red rimmed lips and bright eyes in just the vibration of sound.

He lost his breath.

“I’m so glad you called,” her voice was happy, bright.

He’d just left her in the ground, and yet…

Yet…

“Peggy.” He barely got the word out, the emotion choking him.

“Are you alright, Steve?”

“No, I…” he couldn’t speak. He didn’t want to continue, but couldn’t tear himself away.

“I’m right here, Steve.” Her voice was warm and welcoming, like honey and home and everything he was missing. “Tell me when you’re ready.”

He was quiet for a moment. He contemplated hanging up and deleting the icon.

Instead, he spoke, his words broken and full of loss. “I miss you.”

Her voice wrapped around him through the phone, “And I miss you, darling. But I’m right here. I’m just a phone call away, any time you like.”

He nearly laughed the way her words warmed him. She was so real- had always been every time he talked to the AI.

But she wasn’t real- just an amalgamation of information Tony had stored for decades.

He held the phone away for a second, contemplating his choices. He wanted to walk away, but the loss was still so raw. He pulled the phone back to his ear.

Just for today.

He told himself he’d pretend just for today.

Over the phone, he could pretend she wasn’t dead. Could pretend she hadn’t aged and lived on without him.

Just for today, just until he could get past this pain, he could pretend.

“I guess,” he cleared his throat, trying to banish the thickness in it from the tears, “I guess I should call more often, then.”

“Absolutely. I will accept nothing less, Captain.”

He smiled and sat on the bed, tears falling from his eyes as he listened to her voice.

It was just for today.  

~*~ End Notes: Saved this to the end to avoid giving this away. Deeply inspired by Hayley Atwell’s episode of Black Mirror, “Be Right Back.” If you haven’t seen it, you should.

[estellaelysian]

It burns (Ethan x MC)

A/N: This is super self indulgent and doesn’t lead anywhere so proceed on your own risk

**********

The alcohol scorched down his throat as he let his mind wander in the memories of the day, which seemed too distant now that it was over. Evening shaded into night beyond the red-brick walls of the bar – which were lined with numerous neon signs, the glow spilling onto nearby tables and people. Ethan chased the shadow of Alishka as his mind jumped from one moment to the next in all those where they had interacted with each other over the day. The image of her deep green eyes, wavy brown hair and full lips remained forever etched into his mind, giving him warmth like an eternal flame would.

It was late when he made it to this bar – Russo and Dale – but it was also when he found Boston the most loveable, shimmering in the glow of night, her streets thrumming with life and beating hearts and cheerfulness. He had taken an unnecessary walk from the hospital to his destination, wanting to feel anonymous in the dull crowd of people who were walking down the street. The permanence of the aged buildings, the restored Victorian row-houses surrounding English-style corners and the glowing yellow street lamps in South End seemed to give somewhat of a reassurance to his bruised and tired soul as he weaved his way among the sea of strangers. Walking wearily past dark shops, while the sky turned to a deep blue-black above him, he tried to find solace in the anonymity.

But now, at long last, when he found himself alone again, the unease returned, stronger than ever. He took a sip of the amber liquid, then another and then a third, but nothing seemed to ease him as he listened to the determined thud of a bass from the neighboring dive-bar. The foolish chatter around him did not drown out the rising voices inside his head – her voice and his, as they had argued in his office long into the afternoon.

That one argument had been enough to disrupt the entire balance he had built with the same woman whom he had disappointed today. But it was a mutual disappointment. She had been irrelevant to.

Shaking his head, he took another sip, letting the alcohol burn down his throat as he stared – quite intently – at the marble counter in front of him. It was amazing really, that the woman from whom he drew his strength could also be one of his greatest weaknesses. That was exactly why he had retired to his old office in the afternoon. He had lost focus, so instead of looking into patient care, he thought drowning himself into paperwork would help.

But indeed, it had not. Did it ever?

His mind, like a blissful dog scampering back to its lamppost, seemed to be stuck at the argument – making assumptions about the way she sounded, acted, spoke – no matter how much he tried to distract himself. Everything blurred around him, as if he had tuned out from his surroundings.

Why, he thought, was it so necessary for her to be insistent about things that did not matter to him? To latch onto one subject and stretch it until his patience snapped?

Or had he been truly unreasonable this time?

Oh dear God…

He swirled the gleaming liquid in its glass slowly before taking another sip, intent on numbing his brain, only that it refused from being so. Over and over again, her voice tortured him from deep inside; calling him out on the stubborn asshole he was before fading, only to return for the millionth time.

But wasn’t that the point of tonight? To get as far away as he could from the hospital, go to a bar in South End, and let the alcohol ease his pain and anxiety.

The door opened and someone stepped in, bringing together a cool Boston breeze and faint traces of wildflowers. Though his senses seemed unnaturally sharpened at this point, his eyes remained glued to his glass. But just a few seconds later, he found the woman right beside him, the scent of wildflowers much more perceptible.

Green flashed in his mind, deep and comforting, as he connected the scent, almost instinctively, to the one person it reminded him of.

Hold yourself, Ramsey.

In his peripheral vision, he saw the woman flag down the bartender and order a rainbow colored cocktail before turning away for a moment or two.

‘Quite the pain-relief, isn’t it?’ she asked in a mellifluous, sweet voice which fell like honey onto his tongue.

He could swear it was Alishka’s voice, but maybe he had dived too deep into the alcohol pain-relief. He had started imagining things.

Sensing that she was probably still expecting an answer, he nodded before looking straight at her.

And almost immediately, thought of Alishka Roy, even though he had put up a boundary between him and those insistent, maddening thoughts.

He didn’t realize it at first, but that smile – he would recognize it anywhere, anytime, no matter how detached he was.

But Alishka?

Nonsense. He was losing his mind.

‘I should’ve guessed my boss would come here after the much-exhausting day he faced at work today. It would’ve atleast saved me the time I spent wandering about.’

He raised his eyes to her face again. This was not an illusion. She was real, he thought, as he glanced at her hot coral lips which now wore an amused smile. He was not dreaming.

But why would she feel the need to wander about for him?

Do you really need an answer for that, dimwit, his mind chided.

‘Ofcourse you’d follow me here too,’ he said bluntly, battling away the sweeter responses, raising the glass to his lips.

‘You are not my boss outside of work, Dr. Ramsey. It is my freewill to do as I want to once I step outside the hospital.’

He looked up at her again, a smirk curling the corners of his lips. ‘Says the woman who bothers me all the same, inside or out.’

She made a dismissive wave, an easy laughter leaving her. ‘You’ve got a horrid sense of humor,’ she said. ‘Perhaps that is why everyone is terrified of you, even now.’

The last two words stung with an unimaginable burn, questioning the character he had spent years to build.

‘What do you mean, “even now”?’ he asked, the words coming out much more defiant than he wanted them to.

She smiled a benevolent smile as the bartender dropped off her cocktail, which smelled strongly of Pernod. Raising the glass up to meet her lips with tantalizing slowness, she said, ‘Even now, when they’ve learned that you can love something, someone more than medicine. Wholeheartedly.’

He choked on his drink involuntarily, but she went on, as if she hadn’t heard him at all. ‘And yet, at the same time, you can manage to be incredibly bitter to that someone.’

She took a long gulp of her cocktail, and again, before he could respond to her grievances, she said, ‘But anyway, I am not here to discuss that.’

Play pretend, he thought.

‘And why exactly, is it that you are here?’

‘Same as you. Pain-relief. My boss can be a real bore sometimes,’ she answered with the faintest traces of a smirk.

Let’s hear it now, shall we. ‘Who is your boss?’ he asked, going along with her little game.

‘Some world class, renowned, grumpy attending diagnostician.’

He liked how she complimented him and got a dig at him in the same sentence.

‘He seems to have a stressful job,’ he said, looking over the glass to her heavenly features, painted in the neon glow of the bar.

‘That he likes to imply. He is good at what he does.’

He nodded, trying to contemplate her answer, thinking that there would be traces of sarcasm in her answer, but found none.

‘Cheers to that,’ he said, clinking her glass with his own, their fingers brushing slightly, setting his body ablaze with the kind of fire that raged through forests. It was the closest they had got to touching that day, morning apart.

He finished the scotch in one long sip under her watchful gaze. Torture or bliss, there was no answer.

Though dulled by the excesses of the alcohol, he felt anger rise inside his body at the men who made glances in her direction, from a distance or even as they passed her. She seemed to draw much more gazes today than she did usually.

What exactly was it? Her rich brown hair, inching down her back, or those emerald eyes that gleamed with cleverness? And why, every time, did his jealousy had him to do things which he shouldn’t have been doing?

He didn’t know.

What he did know, was that he wouldn’t let those men even get near her.

So he raised a hand to her face, smoothing away stray strands of hair and tucking them behind her ear.

If she was surprised, she did not show it, but a lovely blush spread out on her cheeks, spreading down to her graceful neck and uncovered shoulders. She eyed him with a raised eyebrow, and he willfully ignored all the ideas that look gave him. Tonight was different. Even if they left the bar together, they would part ways almost as soon as they were outside, walking down in opposite directions.

Tonight they were fighting, even though it was different.

Even if he had to have his heart tugged and pulled and then torn, tonight was different.

Her emeralds met his sapphires, curious and bewitching.

He wished he could kiss those perfectly painted lips and ruin that makeup.

‘How about we make a deal then,’ she asked, setting down the glass on the paper napkin that was left on the shiny marble counter. ‘Tonight, let’s forget everything. Let’s forget that you are my irritating boss, let’s forget that I am a – what did you call me? – ah, bothersome resident. Let’s forget those men staring down at me from the opposite corner of the bar. Let’s put a pause on this battlefield, even though I am sure I can outwit you in every way, and let’ go home together.’

That was a tempting offer.

The suggestive tone and the desire burning plain in her eyes ignited his need for her.

How could he not resist her, even a single night?

His voice came out dusky when he spoke again. ‘Let’s put them topics to bed, and go fuck on the roof.’

Just to say that we did.

She smiled. ‘I’d rather your body than half of your heart,’ she said, quoting the song back to him, her voice the sweetest he had ever heard it to be.

Ethan blinked. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to tell her that he was far from fighting or if he wanted to claim those lips, right now, right here.

Then he saw, over her shoulder, a man whisper something to another before looking at her neck. He felt disgusted as his gaze traveled lower and lower. He was suddenly overcome by the desire to punch him in his filthy face, but he kept his expression carefully neutral, not betraying a single of the feelings he was feeling at that exact moment.

‘Let’s go home then,’ he announced, rising at once and reaching for her hand.

He led her outside into the cool crisp Boston night and she only felt justified in flagging down a cab to the way home, though it wasn’t that far away.

They could’ve walked there.

But then he wouldn’t get to do as he willed right in the cab, as he decided he need not waste a single minute of the time he had been gifted, by incidence or co-incidence, all the same. He failed to keep his hands to himself in the darkened cab, momentarily being illuminated by headlights and taillights of the passing traffic, as he crowed her into a corner, evoking soft moans. He watched her, bathed in red light, her sequined top glittering as the light shifted against her profile. Her eyes met his and he lost his sane, his coherent thoughts reducing to a small compass in his brain. Her lips commanded his attention, and he pressed his lips against them, evoking a gentle sigh as their breaths mingled. Her soft fingers grazed his rough beard as her hand rested against his cheek.

The music masked their muffled whispers and moans, but he could feel the drivers eyes, moving with unnecessary regularity, from the road ahead to the rearview mirror.

Even in the elevator, they stumbled, failing from keeping themselves from touching each other. The button to the thirteenth floor was pressed before he felt the soft pressure of her lips against his own. Her tongue was cool and sweet and tasted of Pernod.

‘Alishka…’ he managed to say between the kisses. ‘Why do we fight at all?’

‘Because we are …’ a little giggle. ‘Both … very stubborn …’

A few seconds later they stood at his door, which was unlocked with haste and shut close with a loud bang. The moment they stepped inside, he dipped his head and closed his lips over hers.

‘Nothing makes sense without you…’ he murmured into her ear, proceeding to tug her tight against him.

‘Then accept your defeat …’ she returned immediately, making a quick work of his shirt buttons. ‘But then again, we’ve called a temporary pause on this battlefield, haven’t we.’

Albeit reluctantly, he agreed. ‘We have.’

He led her to the bedroom, helping her out of her clothes before easing her down on the mattress gently, deciding the bitterness and pain had been enough for the day. The night had to be different.

Slow, gentle hands grazed the newly exposed skin with caresses too soft, before he leaned down on her, gazing into her eyes, letting his forehead rest against hers.

‘I love you.’

She giggled again. ‘I love you too.’

**********

Kudos to you guys if you made it out of this chaotic mess my brain put together. I honestly don’t know how this happened, but I guess it’s just me after a full, very real college day with loads of note-taking.

Tagging: @tenaciouslandvoidgiant @choicesaddict5 @schnitzelbutterfingers @starrystarrytrouble

Let me know if you want to be added or removed.

[jar-full-of-pixel-hearts]

Sugar Kiss Part 3

Part 1 - Part 2

Space Force Netflix

Fuck Tony Scarapiducci x Reader

Notes: I get a little bit cared away by my inspiration so this part is kind of long. But, I hope you will stay until the end because it’s really important ! I hope you will like it !

* English is not my first language, I tried really hard to correct myself but, I hope you will excuse me if some mistakes are still there.  

—-

F. Tony couldn’t really explain what kind of impulse took him that Friday evening on his way home. But, one thing was sure, he needed to see you. 

After one week of feeling ashame and stupid. Writing draft after draft of tweets not sure of the good things to write, apologies, joke, publicity proposition, before immediately erasing them. He became foolishly hopeful to cross your path on the entry of the General Naird office or in the lobby.  It’s only when Wednesday arrived that the idea that maybe you were mad at him slowly started to drive him crazy, leading him to be distracted and sad. 

On many occasions that week, people had asked him if he were okay, confused in front of his unusual silence and the way he was absently biting the nail of his thumbs. 

Even Brad, who usually had a smile each time the four stars general became angry at Tony, started to ask questions that Friday morning.

“ Are you okay ? You are sit on this chair for almost thirty minutes now “ 

“ Yeah yeah interesting. Brad...did...Y/N is the kind of woman to do the cold shoulder traitement...or things like that...did she bring you a box of somethings this week...did she get ill ? “ Tony asked, ignoring the previous question of the one star general about his state of mind.

“ Y/N ?  No I didn’t see her this week, she had that new product she was preparing to release so she was kind of busy. And she certainly is not ill, my wife always knows when one of us is sick. I don’t know how she does it, it’s almost like if she ....” Brad replied half mumbling to himself. “ Why do you want to know if she is the kind to do the silence traitement...what did you do F. Tony ? “  

The joy that maybe you weren't mad at him, abruptly chasing the dark cloud, making him jump out of the inconfortable chair.  

“ She had a cake release ? It wasn’t announced anywhere ! How should I were suppose to known that !” He exclaimed, already writing his next tweet for the moonlight cake twitter. Returning to his office, letting Brad wonders what’s happening and repeatedly calls his name. 

But,once the funny tweet was ready, he still couldn’t send it either, having a strange feeling that it wasn’t the right thing to do. Feeling that Fuck Anthony Scarapaducci didn’t had often in his life.

And there he was, standing in front of the bakery door, waving at you, a smile full of hope plastered on his face . 

Like always, you were stunning even in your simple casual jeans and t-shirt . At your expression, who’s quickly shifting for the most adorable smirk he ever seen, you didn’t expect to see anybody tonight.

Trying to calm the now fast beat of his heart and stop the fog invading his brain as you were reaching to unlock the door. A thousand of sentences started to spin in his head. But, none of the brilliant introductions or explanations for his presence really seem to justify the impulse who’s caught him. Letting him totally mute in front of your amused gaze.  

 “ Well, I know you didn’t really have close hours in space, Spaceman, but on earth it’s kind of a  popular thing. “ You joke, your smile illuminating his night. 

“ Yeah I know...We work on that...I was near and I thought to come see if you still were there...” He lied. “ I can come back another day if you prefer…?” 

“ And let me eat all by myself the two last cinnamon rolls of the day ? No, come in, save me of a devastating sugar rush “ 

" If you insist on offering me a cinnamon roll…" He smiled, passing the door.  

Looking around, admiring the simple but elegant Moon theme you had put in the main room.  Succeeding somehow to make something like space, usually cold, welcoming and warm just like you.  

“ Welcome to Moonlight cake F.Tony “ 

“ Thanks, I like it, it’s really...it’s really you, but with the moon...like Space Force is great but here it’s...really moonie...Instagram aesthetic...” He replied, realizing too late that he was babbling. Closing his eyes,cursing against himself. He suddenly opened them at the soft touch of your hand on his arms. 

“ Thank you, it was kind of the idea... F. Tony, I’m sorry but...are you...are you mad at me, for not telling you sooner about twitter ? Because I swear I thought that you knew“ You shyly ask, the expression in your face, a mix of curiosity, hope and sadness, hurting him. 

“ Mad at you, me ? Naah, of course no...I didn’t reply because of all this job the general Naird had for me this week. That man is so lost if I’m not here to read his tweet and arrange his meeting...” Fuck Tony reply, exaggerating his expression. The last grumble of his own fear that you were mad at him leaving his body like a stone out of his chest” And your uncle tell me about that cake release so I just think that you didn’t need that kind of distraction, that all I swear “  

Seeing you smiling again, the expression so painful for him, leaving your face. He caught himself smiling, like if your happiness was sufficient to make himself happy, like a human bluetooth device.

“ Take a seat I will come back with the pastries  “ You offer him, disappearing being the double door of the kitchen. 

Absently sitting on one of the bistro chairs of the counter, passing a hand in his hair to keep them smooth and in order. F. Tony gave another look around him, discovering your touch in every little decoration and design. Passing from the soft grey of the wall from the blue roses on the counter and the framed picture of the moon. 

“ Sorry for making you wait, I put a batch of cupcake in the oven for tomorrow. So, what brought you here ? “ You asked, contouring the long surface before sitting at his side, putting one of the dessert plates with the precious roll in front of him.

“ I um...I “ He started, fidgeting with his fork, the thought of telling you that he simply wanted to see your face crossing his mind before being shut down by his ego and fear of rejection “ I’m here to offer you my help with the media and talking about an idea“ He suddenly exclaimed, the fog of his brain vanishing.  

“ I'm listening “ You reply, tearing a piece of your roll.

And the simple things that you were truly listening to him,giving you all your attention ,gave him one of the best feelings in the world. 

" When I plan a meeting or press conference we always have the same company hired by the government who serves us awful coffee and hard as hell cookies. No surprise after that, that these reporters ask stupide and horrible questions, they are angry. But, if we serve them your soft, sweet pastry...happiness." He explained, taking a bite of his own sweet. 

" That seems a really great idea, but what makes you think they will accept the change. They will maybe not like what I have to offer or my price. "

" We will probably have to make a plan with a smaller size of your product, bite size, smaller but more for the same cost to bake. But trust me, after a taste of your stuff they will say yes to everything you will ask." He replied, sure of his affirmation. Naird maybe didn't take him seriously when he was talking about social media, but, even he was able to see that in planification, F. Tony didn't play games. " The reputation of Moonlight cake is perfect in the town and at the base. Link to the space force event you will become a legend." 

"Did you think about what it will cost me to do this ? Transport, staff and stock ?" 

" I had thought of it too. If you bring some regular stock, we can sell them at the cafeteria, to the soldier and staff, creating a limited event. So, you will raise your sales of the day and It will also give the chance to gain new customers. “ He continu, glad to not lose all his capacity in front of your brilliant gaze.   

"That's smart,but I'm only a small bakery in a town in Colorado. Government won't hire small business like mine usually" You asked, your knee brushing his as you instinctively approaching him, caught in the discussion. 

" Please, I'm Fuck Anthony Scarapiducci. " He smirks, approaching his face of yours, like if he was about to give you a secret. " I have important contact. " He wink, his heart racing,your delicious perfume waking up is sense. 

" And you will help me, just like that, for my pretty eyes? " You reply,almost in a whisper playfully flirting.

" Y/ N I could do so many things for just the sight of your pretty eyes…" F. Tony flirty confesses, his face at only few inches of yours, giving a glance to your lips. 

Your gaze locked, you slowly approche of each other, attraction pushing you like a magnet. 

Before being suddenly distracted by the loud noise of the oven clock. 

" I...I have to take the cupcake out of the oven" You shyly tell, taking a quickly step back.  

" Yes, no problem I um…" He started misunderstanding your shyness for regret, preparing already himself to leave.  

"I will come back in a minute, stay there please “ You ask, giving him a shy look back before coming into the kitchen,a smile on your lips. 

"Yes! I... I will wait for you here….that you come back…here " He replied surprise, his mind slowly realizing that you almost shared a kiss. That you would actually let him kiss you.

“ They are perfectly gold and smell divine “ You announce, coming back in the main room where F.Tony was waiting for you, lost in his thoughts. “ Are you okay, you seem really serious right now “ 

Lifting his decided gaze on you, his heart beating like crazy, he didn’t bother to reply getting up off his chair before cupping the side of your face with his left hands, his finger tangling into your hair. Approaching gently his face of yours, building his courage, he suddenly kissed you, passing an arm around your waist. 

The kiss, at first sweet and gentle, becomes quickly passionate. Putting your hands on the back of his neck and his shoulder, trying to keep your balance as your head was starting to deliciously spin. You feel his lips leave yours, making you miss the pressure of his mouth almost immediately. 

“ I really have to go...both of my phone's vibrate...Naird need me...I...I text you...I swear…” F.Tony whispers, taking a step back before kissing you quickly one more time in the lips. “ I’m sorry“

Turning on his heels, passing the door, a mix of emotion bursting inside his chest. He let you in shock in the middle of the bakery, your fingers brushing your lips, your heart and his resonating at the same beat.

—

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—

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[amindofstone]

Nyx- Im Changkyun

{

a/n: For better reading keep in mind that the words in italic are Changkyuns train of thoughts.

Genre: Fantasy (ancient greek gods)

Words: ca. 1500

Info: I won´t be writting this and the other six storys fully based on the actual mythological gods and their myths. I will be making changes or only taking aspects that are fitting the ideas I had for each imagine.

Warnings: None (maybe grammar or spelling mistakes. (I apologize. English is not my mother tongue and I´m trying to improve.) Have mercy)

!!! Please do not steal my idea or work. Credit me please if this is shared or published in any other platform. The pictures used aren't mine. Credits to the rightful owner. But the moodboard is made by me. !!!

Inspired by @monxhours (IG) ♡

Q.: Should I do a part ll to this? I kind of have a idea. The ending...  }

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There is this place. A place everyone knows but tries to avoid. A place every living being fears. A place that makes you feel uncomfortable, lost and weak. No matter how strong or how old you are. That place makes you feel small and gives you the feeling of being inferior while the place itself turns into being the superior. A place even the gods from the Olymp don`t like. But at the same time it can also be comforting and loving. It´s silence and raw beauty can be mesmerizing and warm. All he´s doing right now is think about it as a place but is it even one? A place or a location? What is the actual word one can use for describing this existing spot? Spot, location, place. Why does every word sound so weird. No, even wrong when I try to put it in a same sentence with it. “Darkness is a place....” , “The darkness is a location in...”, “Darkness is a spot just right at the bottom of....” A frustrated sigh left his lips. Why is it so complicated? All I wanna do is try to explain my home to a freaking friend. “Dammit!!”. I really should start reading dictionary's. Mother and me are literally reading the same books but how come her vocabulary is better than mine? This absolutely makes no sense. Should I get help from Mr. Google? “Oh my god! Did my brain really just said Mr. Google?! Shit Maddox is really making me dumb as well.”He was about to take his phone from his nightstand when a knock on his door made him stop in his tracks. Is mother already back? 

“Yes, come in.“

Just right after the allowance left his lips the massiv black door to his chambers was fully opened. Changkyun was lying in his bed shirtless and just in his boxers when he saw a woman of pure beauty enter. Oh how he regretted not changing into his night garment after showering. “Mother?!” His cheeks turned into a light pink what put a smile on her face. While looking everywhere but her face he tried to cover himself with a pillow. “I´m your mother. There is no need to be embarrassed my little prince. I raised you up. I carried you in my arms. There you where sometimes clothed and sometimes... well... not. But you always liked to be comfortable at home. I can´t blame you. It actually was always really adorable.”. A little giggle left her lips while she closed to door. When the doors where closed she turned around and looked around her sons chambers. While she did so she tried to hold back a laughter. “You really were bored when Maddox left am I right?”. A little confused Changkyun looked at his mother and then around himself. “What do you mean?”, he asked while giving her a sign to have a seat. She looked around one last time and decided to take a seat near the chimney. It doesn´t matter how much time he spend with his mother or how close of a mother son relationship they had. He was always amazed by her gracious and charming appearance. Beside her beauty which is well known, she was more than just smart. Even Athena was amazed by her. She might not say so and not even think about admitting it but sometimes he could see a glimpse of jealousy when Zeus asks for his mother advice on anything he was up to. Not only Zeus but also his beloved wife. Would he ever be respected and feared at the same time just like her? Will he ever be someone worth to be called a god? Someone who couldn´t even answer the question of his friends. A question of such a simplicity. What´s darkness to you?

And again Changkyun got lost in his thoughts. The goddess sitting in his bedroom was intensely looking at him with a bit of concern. She knew that he was only physically with her at the moment which why she cleared her trot to get his attention. The moment he looked in her eyes again she gave him a warm smile. “Lately I have been finding you lost in your thoughts a lot, my dear son. What´s the cause of you lately wandering around the palace without a destination or reason? Did Eros say something?”. Should he tell her why he was so confused and aimlessly spending his time in his or his mothers library? If so, what exactly was the reason? Why was he like this? Lying to his mother by making something up was not an option since he knew that she can sense it when he or anyone lied. Saying that he was alright and fine would theoretically be also a lie since he obviously wasn´t in a great state. He was lost. “Mother. May I ask you something?”, with a small nod and a loving smile she gave him her approval. “What is darkness to us?”, the little smile his mother carried left her just to be replaced with a sweet laughter. The goddess stood up just to approach her son and sit next to him. While still laughing she put his right hand in hers and gave him a kiss on his forehead. “Get dressed. I want you to accompany me tonight. Would you like to do that?”. A little confused and also pained about his mothers laughter he simply nodded and stood up to get dressed like she requested it. Before he could enter his wardrobe he was told by his mother that she would be waiting for him in the entrance hall and that he can take his time.  “I´m not in an rush, I want to spend time with you.” He clearly did not understand her but still went along. “Oh and your place is a huge contrast to your personality but I really like it. Black and gold really does go well together.”

Leaving his room he was greeted by the dark hall of the palace he lived in. Black sconces which were slightly shimmering in silver where lighting up the massive halls. The halls in this quarter of the palace had just a few windows what were exactly the reason why he choose his room to be here. Although he had to argue with his siblings a lot about it. Mostly with Alec who is known for being annoyingly stubborn. The thought of the many fights he had with him over the room made him smile a bit. And just for a second he felt happy and carefree again but just for a second. At the end of the hall stairs lead him down to the entrance hall. Thinking about having to take the stairs from the highest floor in the palace makes him want to go back to his chambers and lay back down in his bed while reading the book he recently started. Damian was the title and indeed a book one can´t miss. But he can´t be doing that. All in all he´s supposed to meet his mother who wants to take him on a walk. With a last sigh his eyes turned pitch black and wings spread at his back. Each wing being as tall as Changkyun himself and as beautiful and majestic as the ones his mother had. With a small smile he spread his wings and let himself fall from the window to his left. Let´s see if I get scolded again for being lazy. So it happend that he did not came approaching his mother by waling down the stairs but flying through one of the black glittering windows. Lighter than a cat and quieter than a feather falling down he landed in front of his mother. “I apologize for making you wait.”. With a innocent smile and a look through his warm chocolate brown eyes into hers he offered her his arm before she could think of scolding him. 

In less than a second and even before Changkyun could ask where she planed on going they were leaving the dark. He could see that they were leaving the underworld behind what made him think that she might bring him to the olymp. But he was wrong. Midway to the olymp they were stopping and landing on earth. A little confused and lost he was looking at his mother with a slightly tilted head. The place they were standing on wasn´t making it better. In fact it confused him even more. Why would she bring me here? Was someone coming to see us? But if that would be the case why would they want to meet up in a place like this? One question after another was going through his head what made him feel uneasy. When there was something he hated the most, it was not having a answer to a question. He couldn´t bear the feeling of being clueless. It made him feel small and weak. Powerless, dumb and pathetic. He was turning around while trying to absorb his surrounding but still he couldn´t understand why he was here. Not being able to handle this ignorance he turned to his mother. “Why are we here? Is someone coming? Did something happen?”, but his mother keeped quiet. “Mother?”. Still keeping the silence she decided to have a walk while telling him that she is trying to find a spot to sit. Although he couldn´t understand her because they could be sitting anywhere. He still followed her. Letting her son walk behind her all confused and lost in thoughts she was calmly enjoying her nightly walk through her favourite place. Stopping infront of a sea and looking over her shoulder to check if her son was still keeping up with her. When she saw him still following her, she smiled and offerd him her hand. Changkyun on the other hand was a bit mad since his mother decided to ignore his questions and make a inprovised trip to the forest with him. Seeing him hesitating she smiled and took his hand in hers and lead him to the pedistrian bridge she was walking to. Careful on when and where he made a step he followed her and wondered if her dress was not bothering her. The train wasn´t even that long but still made him wonder if it was hard walking with it. It´s train was definitely shorter than the dresses she usually wore but still long enough to be thankful that he is a man and not a woman. At the end of the bridge she stopped and sat down while letting her legs dangle above the sea. Changkyun was about to tell her that her dress might get wet but then realised that it would be ridicolous. So he simply keeped quiet and sat next to her. A long pleasant silence filled the atmosphere what was broken for a few seconds by the goddess of darkness by simply stating that this was her favourite place. Changkyun closed his eyes and gave every little noise around him his attention. From the insects and the forest animals up to the howling of the wind. He absorbed every little noise. This place was so different compared to his home. With every minute passing you could hear something else. There was not even a second where Changkyun could feel the comfortable silence he liked and was used to. The silence he grew up to. After 120 years of living and visiting the olymp, the underworld, the earth and of course his home the darkness, it was the earth he liked as the least one. It didn´t resemble his home at all. If was way to different, loud, hectic and chaotic. No matter where he was on earth, he simply felt out of place. But his mother liked the earth compared to him. In fact she loved it. There was not even a night where she didn´t left for a walk on earth. 

“You asked me something, remember.”. Changkyun who´s eyey were still closed opended them to just to be greeted by his mothers loving smile. How could she be always in such a positiv and happy mood? “How could I forget that. If you would ask me this in hundred years I still would be able to remember it because you literally called me stupid by laughing at me.”. Changkyuns words made his mother hold her stomach because of laughing. Her laughter was filling the silence of the nights darkness. As if their entire surrounding was just waiting for a sign of her happiness the clouds which were covering the night sky slowly were leaving and allowing us the sight of a beautiful starry night. With every second passing the amount of stars on the sky were increasing and were showing themselves brighter and clearer. With every second passing more stars were filling the night sky. Just like a nation that is gathering around a pedestal to come and take a look at their leader and savior. To come and thank them, show them their respect and love. As if the stars around the univers are getting together out of happiness and respect to the goddess of the dark who was visiting them after a long time. A amazed sigh left his lips while he was looking at the starry night sky. Next to her he never felt like a god or even like a king. His mother, the goddess of the dark, the Nyx was literally the definition of majestic. He always felt like someone noble who was simply lucky having her around while being able to say that they are from the same family. 

“Oh Changkyun I wansn´t laughing at you. I just was suprised to hear that question from you. I remember Amalia saying that you will never come to me to ask that question because your simply too proud of yourself and who are. Who thought that my proud little son would come up with that question now after 120 years. But I guess that Jooheon and Kihyun were messing with you again.”. His mothers words made him smile and shake his head slightly. “You know me to well mother. But yes, that´s exsactly what happend. We were talking about what we like to do the most and what our favourite places were. Without thinking much about the queston I said home and my chambers but that was confusing them a bit. Even Kihyun what was actually really amusing.”. The goddess turned a bit to her left so she could look him in the eyes properly. With a sweet smile she went through the hair of her youngest and maybe even favourite child and tried to help him out of his weeks of thinking about a simply question. “You see home can be anything and everywhere. It differntiates from person to person. Home can be a house, a city or even a whole country. Home is where one feels safe, happy and comfortable. Home does not have to be a place it can also be a moment in which you feel secure. Jooheon for example is the most happiest when he can fly around the sky of the olymp. And Kihyun for example feels home in literally every existing libary. And for you my beloved son it´s the deepest and darkest location of the entire universe. The darkness. The darkness that is me and you. The darkness that is the only reason why day and light exists. Son, my dear Changkyun, look around this beautiful sight. It only exists because you and I exist. This is you and at the same time your home and comfort. Our existence is a bleassing to anyone and it doesn´t matter if we´re talking about humans or gods. They are alle appreciating and loving us. One way or another it´s us that shows them the beauty in chaos.”

After finishing her train of thoughts she took her sons hand and gave it a light kiss. And without even giving him a chance of saying anything or starting a dialogue with her she gave him a last smile and said “I know that you want to see that one half goddess you always give a visit. You should do so otherwise she might get mad at you for making her wait.”. Changkyuns cheeks turned into a light shade of pink what made him look down in his lap. With a little chuckel the Nyx left him alone. Embarrased and a bit flustered he went through his hair and took his phone out. Turning his phone on he saw that he had a message from her what made him laugh. Amalia was right. Trying to keep a secret from the goddess of the dark was impossible and a waste of time.

[spanishskulduggery]

Hello! My group and I have been studying diligently on zoom every since we’ve been made to go online, but it’s really hard when we’re all struggling and don’t have anyone to turn to. I have a worksheet based off of hypothetical and si clauses. I’m providing what the lesson gives us, and the worksheet as well. 

# 8 – A – FRASES HIPOTÉTICAS

⦁ I would run if I had more energy. – Yo correría si yo tendría más energía.

⦁ If they were home, they would *set the table – Si ellos estarían en casa, ellos pondrían la mesa.

⦁ You (inf.) would chat if you could. - Tú con chantajarías si tú puedes.

⦁ If I studied more, I would *know more vocabulary – Si yo estudiara más, yo sabría más vocabulario.

⦁ You (pl.) would *say more if you (pl.) wanted (to). – Ustedes dirían más si Uds. querrían.

⦁ He would propose tonight if he had a job. – Él proponería este noche si él tendría un trabajo.

⦁ If we conserved more energy, we would pay less money. – Si nosotros conservaríamos más energía, nosotros p_________ más dinero.

⦁ They would develop more new technology if they built a bigger lab.- Ellos d_____________ más technología nuevo si ellos c___________ un laboratorio más grande.

https://i.imgur.com/zt2sHsD.png

https://i.imgur.com/AvnoimZ.png

Here is the lesson, and above is the what we’ve been working on. We’ve been using the conditional for pretty much all of them, but looking at our lesson the conditional isn’t really used. What we’re having issues with is figuring out what sentence falls under what category- hypothetical statements about possible events, improbable events, the past, or habitual conditions and actions in the past. I think we know most of these don’t fall under the last two, but deciding between it being a probably or improbably event is an issue too.

Even then, when we think it’s a probable event, it can be conjugated in four different ways, and that confuses us more. I think when it uses words like “would” or “could” my brain thinks it needs to fall under conditional, while future tense uses “will.” Could you possibly explain why these sentences don’t really use conditional, and how to better tell which it could fall under from the sentences given? I guess the textbook is making it a little confusing for me.

Thank you for any help you can give :) I really appreciate it.

—————————————————————————

[Response from Spanishskulduggery]

For a minute I was really confused because that was a lot of conditional being used instead of what I thought it would be.

First let me say that you should try not to interpret “could” and “would” literally for Spanish as compared to English. English uses similar conjugations for many different tenses which can be confusing.

Just as a quick example: “I could have helped” is past tense [I would personally use imperfect but preterite wouldn’t be wrong], but “you could help” could potentially be present tense or conditional.

Don’t go based off of how it’s translated for “could” and “would”. It doesn’t help as much as you think it will. Instead, try and focus on the general mood being set up.

But based on what they’re trying to have you do, “could” sounds like they’re using it for poder and then “would” is being used for other verbal conjugations of conditional. 

So just for example again:

Podrías hablar. = You could speak. / You would be able to speak.

Hablarías. = You would speak

Second, it sounds like you’re learning conditional and imperfect subjunctive.

These can be boiled down to “if/then” statements.

Typically, the “if” is the contrary to fact statement and/or the hypothetical. “If I had more energy”, “if I studied more”, “if he had a job”

Think about what those “if” statements are… They aren’t actually what the situation is. You’re setting up a hypothetical thing. “If X, then Y”. The X doesn’t exist, it’s not how things actually are. It’s contrary to fact, it’s hypothetical.

In those situations, “if” is imperfect subjunctive. And it’s better translated as “were” for English, but again don’t get too caught up in translation, try thinking about the mood.

For example:

Si fuera a España… = If I were to go to Spain… / If I went to Spain…

Si pudiera… = If I were able to… / If I could…

Si estudiara más… = If I were to study more… / If I studied more…

So take the first sentence…

“If I went to Spain”… the implication is that “I” never went to Spain. That’s hypothetical.

The “then” statement is normally in conditional. It describes what someone “would” do if something “were” to happen.

…viviría en Madrid. = …I would live in Madrid.

…ayudaría. = …I would help.

…sacaría mejores notas. = …I would get better grades.

These are the consequences of the implied hypothetical.

In fact, conditional is often used with deber for the idea of “should’ve”… like debería haber hablado con ella “I should have spoken with her”. 

Conditional gets used a lot with “coulda woulda shoulda” type situations.

But be aware that the if/then statements can be in any order, so you have to be careful:

Estarían enojados si te ayudara. = They would be angry if I helped you.

Si te ayudara, estarían enojados. = If I helped you, they’d be angry.

Si dijera la verdad, nadie me creería. = If I told the truth, no one would believe me.

Nadie me creería si dijera la verdad. = No one would believe me if I told the truth.

And just a quick side note about imperfect subjunctive:

There are some words or phrases that could be imperfect subjunctive or could be something else, but it really depends on context.

Most commonly that’s si “if” and aunque which is “even though/although” or “even if” in subjunctive:

Aunque es verdad… = Although it is true… [it is true; indicative]

Aunque sea verdad… = Even if that is true… [contrary to fact; subjunctive]

Aunque fuera verdad… = Even if that were true… [contrary to fact; subjunctive]

And…

Si tienes tiempo… = If you have time… [normal]

Si tengas tiempo… = If you have the time… [polite; subjunctive]

Si tuvieras tiempo… = If you were to have the time… [overly polite; subjunctive]

Although you can use imperfect subjunctive this way it’s not really recommended because it sounds overly deferential.

But you do see it in hypothetical and contrary to fact statements:

Si tuvieras tiempo, me ayudarías. = If you had the time, you’d help me.

In this case, “if you had the time” is hypothetical. It’s implied that the person doesn’t have time, but IF they did THEN they would help.

Now onto the actual worksheet itself: I’m not going to correct every single thing unless you want me to and you can send me an ask or another submission if you’d like letting me know…

But I’m going to point out some things that are either very wrong or are noteworthy. So I’d encourage you to go back over your worksheet now that you have more information

But really look for “if” and “then” statements, I think that will help.

In particular try and examine the sentence and see if the “if” statement could also make sense as a “if it were”, “if they were to have”, “if they were to” something. That’s your biggest clue that they want imperfect subjunctive. 

Again, this is difficult for English because we don’t have a clear imperfect subjunctive, and even when we do, we don’t have totally unique conjugations.

Now the worksheet:

#3 I think the word they want is conversar which is why it starts with con but that confused me too. Typically the word used for “to chat” is charlar. The word you’re using I don’t think is a word, but it looks very close to chantajear which is “to blackmail”. So I would say that’s conversarías si pudieras “you would converse if you could”

#4 You got that one completely right; si estudiara, sabría where estudiara is imperfect subjunctive “if I were to study” 

#7 conservar would be in imperfect subjunctive though be careful because the nosotros forms have accent marks a lot of the times: conserváramos. The word they want you to use for “pay” is pagar I would bet

#8 The verb they want you to use for “to develop” is probably desarrollar which is regular. And “build” is probably construir which is regular in conditional, but irregular in imperfect subjunctive. Basically construir ends in -uir, and the imperfect subjunctive form for -ir and -er verbs is -iera. They don’t want you to write “construiera” because that looks weird so instead you’d be writing construyera. That pattern happens for oír, leer, destruir and a few others; oyera, leyera, destruyera and it’s not TOTALLY irregular, it’s done for spelling purposes but it does LOOK irregular. And I only say that because I don’t know if they taught you that yet.

#6 The verb is proponer but keep in mind that the same irregularities that apply to the root irregular verbs typically apply to their offshoots. In this case proponer is related to poner so if it’s conditional it’s pondría it would be propondría. You got it right that it was conditional. But if it were imperfect subjunctive [si fuera condicional, sorry I couldn’t stop myself that’s an “if” statement], then it would be pusiera for poner, and propusiera for proponer.  This applies to most of the root irregularities… hacer and satisfacer, poner and proponer, venir and convenir. The exception to that is decir where the offshoots conjugate as if they were regular for future and conditional tense. I don’t know why. Irregular decir is normally diría. But bendecir, maldecir, predecir all come out like bendeciría, maldeciría, predeciría. And most annoying is that they’re totally irregular again for imperfect subjunctive: bendijera, maldijera, predijera taking after dijera for decir. It is maddening I’m so sorry but luckily you don’t have to use those verbs that way very often. They are sometimes curveballs that the exams will throw at you for fluency tests though.

Oh! Important side note:

If you look up imperfect subjunctive in Spanish, you’ll probably find two forms. One will be -iera/-ara, and the other will be -iese/-ase

There’s some historical difference there which is not much use to you now

But the important thing is that if you’re in Latin America you’re going to see -iera/-ara more, and in Spain you’d see -iese/-ase for imperfect subjunctive

Si hubiera estado allí… = If I had been there… [Latin America] Si hubiese estado allí… = If I had been there… [Spain]

Si hablara… = If I were to speak… [Latin America] Si hablase… = If I were to speak… [Spain]

Si comeira… = If I were to eat… [Latin America] Si comiese… = if I were to eat… [Spain]

Si viviera… = If I were to live… [Latin America] Si viviese… = If I were to live… [Spain]

Anyway, let me know if you want something else explained or if you’d like me to talk to you more about the answers in depth. I hope this helps, let me know either way.

EDIT: Also I just want to point out that some of this is entirely contextual.

So for example, #2 “If they were home they would set the table”

That all depends on how the context is.

Is it contrary to fact, or is it not?

Let me put it to you this way:

Si estuvieran en casa, pondrían la mesa. = If they were home, they would set the table.

This implies that they ARE NOT home. You’re in a situation where the people are not home, and you’re like “huh that’s weird, I guess they must not be here, because if they WERE, this is what they WOULD DO”

However...

Si estaban en casa, ponían la mesa. = If they were home, they would set the table.

This only makes sense in the context of recalling a memory. You’re saying what someone USED TO DO.

So “Oh, I remember that whenever they were home, they’d set the table and eat together” would all be in imperfect. You’re recounting an event or talking about someone’s habits.

That’s what your worksheet is talking about with habitual practices.

So in your second image:

Iba a la playa. = I would go to the beach.

Iría a la playa. = I would go to the beach.

This is what I meant by English being unhelpful for translations.

The first iba implies it’s something someone did in the past

The iría implies it’s something that hasn’t happened but someone might want to do it in the future, but possibly can’t.

Putting that together like last time:

Iba a la playa cuando tenía tiempo. = I would go to the beach whenever I had time.

Iría a la playa si tuviera tiempo. = I would go to the beach if I had time.

That first sentence is talking about what someone would do in the past

The second implies the person doesn’t have time so they can’t do that, even though they want to.

[iovnyu]

happy ending (5/?)

summary: being cinderella’s daughter has many pros and cons but on top of that you are soon becoming responsible for the citizens of auradon. the first thing you do to show the citizens of your worthiness is by creating a program to bring kids from the isle of the lost, a isolated island where villains and their kids are held, onto auradon. with this new program, you undergo harsh realities and maybe a little bit of love and drama along the way, who knows?

a/n: i am still playing around with different layouts of the story lol... please bare with me through this process. i don’t really vibe with writing in notes but idk yet. also i noticed i am barely using disney references LMAO,, anyways if u want to be added into the taglist please comment 

y/n was deep in thought when she walked to math class. she knew that at the end of the day, she had to pick which students deserved to go to auradon from the isle. it was hard to not be biased, she wanted all of the delinquents to come over. 

“boo!” a voice jolted y/n out of her thoughts. y/n looked next to her seeing that jun was the one who scared her. “god, do you ever pay attention to your surroundings?”

“hey! i do, it’s just that my mind is too preoccupied to care about the world right now,” y/n said rolling her eyes. usually, she observed her surroundings - she had to - it was one of the unspoken rules of being a princess. 

jun smiled at her, knowing that he shouldn’t pry y/n on her thoughts. they walked down the long hallway of classes, making sure to smile and wave at the teachers outside of their classrooms. “well m’ lady, time for you to go to your class. have fun.” he sang, lightly pushing her into the most boring (and useless) classroom. 

y/n sighed but tried to not make it noticeable as mr. hyunh greeted the students. she walked to her seat and pulled out the supplies she needed to make her notes look pretty. 

“let’s quiet down please,” mr. hyunh said over the loud chatter of the students. “take out your books and get started on the assignment.”

*

y/n quickly walked out of class, not wanting the pythagorean theorem to be haunting her in her sleep. as she is walking to her next class, she makes sure to walk fast because she knows that seokmin is waiting for her. 

seokmin waits outside of his classroom almost every day and waits for y/n so that they can walk to history class together. it was hard to get away from any of the princes. y/n didn’t mind it though, they never left each others’ side ever since they were babies. 

“let me guess,” he turned his head towards y/n, “you are stuck on which students to bring over here because you don’t want to make it look like you are playing favorites - but in reality, you know who you are going to take because you know how they would react if you didn’t pick them.”

“okay. first of all, how did you manage to speak that fast without breaking a sweat, and second, can you please stop doing that thing.” y/n never knew how he would be a moody person due to the lack of sleep to become a mind reader. she seriously needs to hide her thoughts more if she is easy to read. 

“what thing!?” 

“you know! that thing you do whenever i am thinking about something.” y/n huffed.

“y/n. darling. my prettiest friend. the apple to my p-”

y/n interrupted him, slapping his shoulder. “i get it. we are best friends, get to the point talking beauty.”

“nice pun. anyways, what i am trying to say is that,” he stops and turns towards y/n. “you are easy to read.”

“hey! i’m not. y-you are just an over-analyzer.” y/n argued. seokmin started to walk away from her, making sure she sees him roll his eyes. “come back here! seokmin! god, i’m going to make sure he doesn’t sleep tonight.”

*

after another dreadful day of school, y/n throws herself on her bed. seokmin, mingyu and jun make themselves cozy in their own way in her room. “y/n, don’t sleep too long. remember you have that meeting with the council today.” jun reminded.

y/n dragged herself off of her bed and towards her wardrobe. “look at what they are making me wear! it’s just like an hour meeting and i have to wear such a dramatic outfit.” she whined.

“y/n. the press is going to be there! and to remind you, you are going to announce the program, so obviously you have to make a statement with what you wear. you have to make sure you look like you know what you are doing!” mingyu reasoned from your couch. 

even if he did have a point, y/n wouldn’t admit it. she never liked the outfits her stylist made her wear for meetings. it never showed y/n’s true personality, it just made her look like a boring person. don’t get her wrong, she loved the outfits that were made for daily wear and fancy events - it’s just plain.

“think of it this way, you still have like maybe two to three hours left until the meeting. you’ll do your homework, put on the outfit, head to the meeting that will last an hour, then you can take off the clothes and never look at it again!” jun smiled, gently squeezing your shoulders. 

“it’s not the outfit that is making me dread the meeting. it’s the reactions i will get from the citizens of auradon. heck! the whole royal court!” y/n put her head in her hands, trying not to think of the many bad results of the people.

jun turned his head to the other two in the room only to be met with shrugs. “uhm. well if you think of it that way, i don’t have an answer for you. but even if they do get mad and disagree,” y/n looked up at jun. “-at the end of the day, it is you who believes in those kids. you have us, we will be by your side and i know for a fact that we do believe what you want to do will have a great outcome.”

“yeah. i mean you are barely a princess, can you imagine how it would be like when you are queen?!” mingyu said, agreeing with jun. 

seokmin flicked the back of mingyu’s head, “what he means is that this is only just one bump in the road. don’t stress about it.”

y/n nodded, “okay, yeah. you are right. i can’t have this stopping me. but what is stopping me is my homework.” the boys laughed, getting their homework out of their bag. 

when y/n laid out her homework on her bed, she sighed. it was too much for her brain to handle. she looked at jun laying out his books and noticed something written in small print on his palm. “hey, what is that?” y/n asked.

“hmm? what is what?” 

“that.” y/n leaned closer to jun, pointing at his palm. it was a little sentence that said, ‘make sure to ask her!!!’

jun laughed nervously, frantically wiping his palm on his pants. at this point he didn’t care if his pants got dirty. “that is nothing. i just- i put it there to remind myself to ask ms. lin about a test. nothing else. yeah...” 

y/n nodded her head, believing what he said. mingyu and seokmin had looked at jun and then at each other, knowing exactly who ‘her’ meant. seokmin made a mental note to ask jun about it later. 

turning to their assignments, they immediately started on it. y/n’s first mistake was grabbing her english homework. usually, it was math that was hard, but shakespeare was harder to understand. there were too many complicated words that made no sense, the story wasn’t interesting and there weren’t any signs of pictures. 

jun noticed y/n’s frustration and laughed. y/n looked up at him, giving him puppy eyes. “oh. oh no. no, definitely not.” jun shook his head, not daring to look at her.

y/n slumped in her bed and pretended to be sad. she knew what she was doing, she always does this and jun always falls for it. “y/n.”

y/n continued to ignore him, sighing loudly. mingyu and seokmin dismissed her behavior, already used to this encounter. “...fine. what subject are you doing?”

y/n immediately smiled and gave jun her book. “it’s macbeth by shakespeare. we have to analyze the story. i don’t get it. can you please help me?” 

jun sighed, nodding his head. even though he hates doing this, deep down he knows that he secretly is okay with it. mingyu and seokmin shake their heads, it’s a known fact - whenever you do homework, be as far away as possible from y/n or else you’ll regret it.

*

finally, after two hours, they were done with their homework. y/n knew that the next thing she has to do is get ready. “okay, i’m going to go get changed, so please don’t mess up my room.”

y/n carefully grabbed the clothes off of the hanger and carried it to the restroom. as she put on the outfit, she decided that it did not look bad after all. “guys, should i do my hair also?” she screamed from inside the restroom.

“depends. do you want a boss lady look or fresh out of the womb type of look?” seokmin screamed back.

“dude, you don’t make sense.” jun shot seokmin a confused face. 

“i don’t know. does this outfit need anything else? should i just go like this?” y/n say coming out of the restroom. she did a little twirl showing off how it looked. 

“uhh... i think you look fine just like that. if you do too much you would look like a try-hard.” mingyu eyed y/n, making sure she looked put together.

y/n nodded and straighten her posture in the mirror. she was thankful she had the boys’ opinions - although she would appreciate a girl’s opinion in case the boys were lying to her. 

jun, mingyu and seokmin had finished their homework while y/n was changing. they all put on their bags, checking to see if they left anything behind. “okay y/n. remember be relax. don’t stress, you got this princess!” jun walked up to y/n and hugged her. 

y/n pursed her lips together and gave a smile to them. one by one they left her room, leaving her to pace back and forth. she had started to rethink things as she went over her notes on what to say. she was caught up in her thoughts, not noticing her chauffeur waiting for her in her doorway.

“ma’am. sorry to interrupt, but we have to head to the meeting now.” 

y/n nodded and quickly grabbed her belongings. she followed him through the long corridors of the castle and into the garage where a suv waited for her. she took a deep breath and stepped inside. let’s hope all goes well.

previous // next

masterlist

[dreamsafterhours]

college boyfriend!markhyuk au series: III (mark’s pathway)

a universe in which roommates!markhyuk meet each other's s/o in class

markhyuk are roommates, my/n and dy/n are roommates, mark and dy/n take classes together and so do donghyuk and my/n — how will their fates intertwine?

genre: fluff pairings: mark+my/n (fem), donghyuk+dy/n (fem), platonic!mark+dy/n, platonic!donghyuk+my/n format: dotpoint AU universe: non idol, college bf warning: some swearing

masterlist

or click here to meet your soulmate, paediatrics!donghyuk!

II ⇤ | III | ⇥ IV

III: 별빛이 내린다 샤라랄라랄라라 (2+2=4)

the meeting of two souls: mark & my/n

hi hello good day how are you? i hope you're well today/tonight this is like 3 weeks late isn't it :D pls don't come after me i lost some motivation to write for a while but here i am now so let's get to it!!

aight so you met donghyuk's roommate for the first time yesterday and,,

you honestly had NO IDEA someone could be that cute

highkey regretting not asking for his name but you were so caught up in lingering on the fact that he implied you were pretty , like wHO DOES THAT ASDFKJL

you highkey shouted the verbal equivalent of a keyboard smash with ur roommate and she was all !! oh so this guy cute cute

you were contemplating whether or not to sneakily ask donghyuk for his name but you were worried bc hyuk has,, crazy sense when it comes to reading people and seeing through their words

and honestly you didn’t want to have to deal with hyuk potentially teasing the shit out of u for having a maybe crush on his roommate whom u’d just met

so you just beat your pillow sleep on it after your roommate reminds you it’s getting late and no life decisions should be made after 12am!! live by it

you wake up craving jjajangmyeon but alas if you were to get any satisfaction of that kind of hunger, it was going to have to wait because

~~ we love ~~ packed schedules ~~ in this house ~~

i hopes the sarcasm was noted in that previous sentence bc now u wish for life to cease

4 weeks into the semester and you were drowning in the midst of reports and lab pracs and content and revision

you were ready to ascend to the next life with only regret and an ability to vaguely explain the properties of a prokaryotic cell and endosymbiosis

but honestly donghyuk’s been a big help throughout the past month

your only friend in classes

official study buddy

2am revision session consultant

personal older brother bc he claimed you as his adoptive sister

another reason your roommate told you to go to bed was bc you literally have

a tutorial class + 2 consecutive 1.5 hour lectures + a 3 hour lab class to finish your day off

with no break for lunch in between :’((

looks like you’ll be starving through your library study session with dy/n

but oop

you find that dy/n had stayed up long after you’d fallen asleep writing her essay 

leaving your dorm feeling a twinge of guilt that u might have distracted her from focusing on her work to listen to your rambles and kept her up later than she should have been

but a text from her in the afternoon reassures u that honestly she wasn’t even planning to write that essay and The Feels™ had just hit her last night and that she made it to class

you: oh PHEW that’s good

you: sorry i didn’t wake you up on my way out, u looked so peaceful i couldn’t bear to disturb

dy/n 🦁: dw dw it’s all g i made it n e way

dy/n 🦁: also is it cool if my friend and his friend comes to the study sesh as well we have to go through some lecture content

you: ah yes don’t see why not :)) i’ll probs have my earphones in the entire time anyways lmao won’t affect me

but will it

“who u texting in the middle of diffusion” cue hyuk peering over at the phone you’re hiding in your lap

you click your tongue at him and lock your phone, “someone twice the man you’ll ever be”

he gasps in mock horror like he’d just witnessed a murder as quietly as he can ,,

“you’re texting a guy? in the middle of diffusion?”

“no. my roommate lmao”

“and what? is it me or your roomma—”

“—my roommate” you glance back up at the prof without looking at him

“ouch”

“you dare?”

“if i don’t dare, who will”

and due to this exchange, you miss the osmosis slide

“ah shit what was osmosis again”

“lmfao what makes u think i know that”

(pause)

“isn't it just.. net movement of free water molecules from an area of high concentration to an area of low concentration”

sorry my bio neural pathways are being excited again after being revisited for the first time in two years

/stares at him/ “why was that infuriating to hear from u”

after class you prepare to head to your dreaded 3-hour lab class you have with donghyuk but he stands up and stares into the void blankly

“where am i going”

“where do u think”

“oh, hell, most likely”

you scoff at the accuracy and drag him out of the lecture hall

you look at donghyuk and he’s visibly resisting the urge to poke your cheek when he first puts on his gloves

“what’s with you today”

he stares at his hands forlornly, “idk ask that to my timetable”

“week 4 got u dead huh”

he glances at you with a frown, “don’t act like u’re not dying too”

“damn. touché”

to your dismay, the lab class runs later than scheduled and you get out of it 20 minutes after it was meant to finish but luckily it’s your last class

with a quick goodbye to donghyuk and a text letting dy/n know you were going to be a lil late, u stop by ur dorm to pick up ur textbook before rushing to the library

you were highkey exhausted and just. famished by that point

but a promise is a promise and you weren’t going to back out of one now

especially when you felt like you owed your roommate one and it was you who originally suggested a library session

so you get to the library, bag strap slung over your shoulder, checking the photo of the seats dy/n had saved for you in the library

highkey getting lost once or twice but you manage

you get to the general area and spot dy/n sitting at a four-seater (wow how’d they get that) but you

freeze when you see who’s sitting next to her

it’s ??

????????

????????????????

/error 404/

????????????????

????????

ur heart goes into panic mode bc

it’s not even kidding it’s donghyuk’s roommate

and despite ur brain short-circuiting

you manage to remember that dy/n had said that mentioned her friend’s.. roommate.. also coming along..

and if her friend was donghyuk’s.. roommate..

you: :                             )

you: oh my god they were roommates

and speak of the devil

“oh hey fancy seeing u here”

you turn around and it’s donghyuk legit chills right there

you barely reply a “hi”

“i thought u were going to ur dorm for dinner”

“ah yeah—no i’m.. gonna go over some.. diffusion”

“oii! over here dude” his roommate whisper-yells out at donghyuk

dy/n waves at you “heYY my/n”

donghyuk waves and turns back to you “welp i’m gonna join a study group.. you could join if you came alone? i’m sure they won’t mind”

“about that”

“u waiting for someone?”

“i’m going over there too”

“what?”

he glances over at the table and then back to you

“that’s my roommate. right there next to your roommate”

you point her out and then donghyuk’s jaw drops

“what the fUC—” and you both. burst iinto laughter at the ridiculousness of the situation

like ?? how???

“wOW r u KIDDING”

“HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN”

“talk about a coincidence.. oh my god my cheekbones hurt” he says as he clutches his side

so you get to the table and dy/n tries to introduce u to donghyuk’s roommate

“mark, this is my/n, my/n this is mark”

ah yes so mark is his name, you think

cute name for a cute boi

“nice to meet you again, mark”

dy/n: “?? again?”

mark gives u a rlly wide smile “yeah we’ve met. hi my/n”

you swear you’ve never had your heart flutter like this

fdksoafjadgioarigilf

then mark introduces dy/n to donghyuk and they start talking about how they’re your legal guardian and telling the other to “get in line”

leaving you in middle like “ok mum and dad” but also thinking back to when donghyuk was highkey flirting with you,, and now how he’s flirting with dy/n ,, oh dude he’s flirting

and highkey ,,, you don’t have any hard feelings about it ,, you know she’s also got this kind of humour code and she’s far more comfortable with meeting new people

until dy/n jokes about custody rules and donghyuk replies with “who says we’re split”

ok mum and dad

n e ways you came to study and study you will

so you settle down and go through your notes for the day

albeit being a lil distracted by mark who sits right across from you somehow, somewhy,,

somewhy should be a word you can’t tell me how to english

you keep wanting to steal glances at him but you have to physically restrain yourself from doing so

and also donghyuk who keeps poking u under the table and texting u even though he’s right next to you

💩hyuk: bro

💩hyuk: bro

💩hyuk: bro

💩hyuk: bro

💩hyuk: bro

you: wHAT

💩hyuk: nvm lol

you: im boutta slap u. give me my pen back i saw that

💩hyuk: damn

💩hyuk: also r u hungry

you: terribly

you: why

💩hyuk: does ur roommate have any allergies

you: not that i know of

you: again

you: why

you: u buyin?

💩hyuk: 🤡<- you

💩hyuk: 🤡, how do you feel about dinner

you: invalid question. no variable answer

💩hyuk: alright, 🤡. im not buying for u

you glower at him but he isn’t looking at u,, he leans back and laments about how he’s craving chinese food

did he read your damn mind how did he know

and apparently he’s read dy/n’s mind too at how she jumps up at the mention of chinese and agrees profusely

so you find yourself abandoning your studies for the rest of the night and in a restaurant lmfao

“chill,, guys,,, jjajang is fine”

rock paper scissors for the cheque ends in mark’s tears

“no it’s ok. i’m ok it’s our first meeting as a fateful group and it makes sense! for me to pay”

after you satisfy your cravings the boys walk dy/n and you back to your dorm

mark tells dy/n to give him her bag for him to carry and while she practically gives it up to him, he has to insist that he’ll carry yours too

to which you’re like omg no it’s fine i can carry it it’s not that heavy i swear—

until donghyuk takes ur bag off ur shoulder and passes it to mark

because of the narrow path, you’re forced to walk in pairs and you end up walking next to donghyuk who makes happy sounds about how good that food was and how priceless mark’s face was when he lost rock paper scissors

then dy/n takes the initiative to make a group chat for you four,, asking for donghyuk’s number to add

you give her a look like damn gurl but you have no idea if she saw or if she just ignored you on purpose lmfao

also donghyuk looked way too happy afterwards

either way you slapped her when you got back to the dorm like “SINCE WHEN WERE YOU SO ?? BRAVE?”

dy/n: um

dy/n: honey

dy/n: have you met me

and thus the chaos of a group chat was born and just like a real child, you spent hours on it

dy/n 🦁: ok we inside

you: thanks for dinner again mark!

💩hyuk: he says you’re welcome

💩hyuk: i say we “accidentally” lose our purses next time we go out

you: nah you’re paying next

💩hyuk: y

💩hyuk: y, 🤡

dy/n 🦁: yes y, 🤡

dy/n 🦁: HAHAH WHY IS SHE 🤡

💩hyuk: i thought you of all people would know

dy/n 🦁: why is she just as dumb in class as she is in the dorm?

💩hyuk: i knew it

dy/n 🦁: she poured too much hot water into her tea the other day it overflowed and spilt onto her foot

mark: oh no were u okay

💩hyuk: looks like you’re gonna have to study osomsis

💩hyuk: osmoiss

💩hyuk: fuck

you: yes i’m okay it wasn’t that hot i had socks on too

💩hyuk: osmosis

dy/n 🦁: avoided tragedy luckily

💩hyuk: finally

you: there is a reason you’re saved as 💩hyuk on my phone

dy/n 🦁: HAAHAHAHAHHAHAH

seriously you just don’t know just how much this group was going to mean to you yet

click here to meet your soulmate, paediatrics!donghyuk!

II ⇤ | III | ⇥ IV

shoot me an ask if you’d like to be tagged in future parts!

[bae-science]

⬤,#,ʃ

⬤: being called soft things like baby, sweetheart or honey

#: shaky hands

ʃ: fingers running through sweaty hair

Vanessa sleeps with her phone under her pillow, at first.

The default alert noise made by the Dexcom G6 sensor when detecting high blood sugar is the highest E note possible on an electric keyboard, chosen specifically to wake up the wearer even in REM so the high can be corrected. Vanessa would know. It’s the single most annoying fucking sound in the entire fucking world, and no matter how many times she’s heard it over the years, it never fails to pull her from a good night’s sleep to blearily stumble out of bed and stab herself at two in the fucking morning. The precise, ear-splitting pitch that automatically plays at full volume is the absolute bane of her fucking existence, and Newt better hurry his ass up and develop an artificially grown pancreas, or one of these nights, she’s gonna throw something. Other than her pen. And that’s usually on accident. Usually.

She didn’t get her hands on a CGM until she, Karla, and Hermann were bunking up together, and even then Hermann had turned the study into a bedroom, so she and Karla took the real ones. Waking someone else up during the night with an alarm was never a problem.

Then, of course, she and Karla began sleeping together (both in the sense that they shared a bed, and Vanessa was finally getting to top both of their brains out), and suddenly Vanessa had a whole other person’s night’s sleep to think about.

The solution ended up being to place her phone squarely under the center of her pillow, then sleep directly on it so any noises were only audible to her ears. She would hear the telltale beeping of a high or low alert, carefully extricate herself from the bed, and deal with the problem while steadfastly praying it didn’t wake Karla. She and Hermann had already dealt with enough issues sprung from her diabetes. What kind of a girlfriend would Vanessa be if she dragged Karla awake every time her blood sugar decided to ruin her beauty sleep?

It was already a small miracle Vanessa had somehow managed to get Karla as her butch. She wasn’t pushing her luck.

It’s of course the first one in years that dips into the forties that Karla wakes up for. Obviously.

Vanessa is living just her best possible life, braced against the kitchen counter with one eye screwed shut as she tries to steady her hand enough to measure out exactly 1/4 a cup of orange juice. She wants an entire bag of pretzels dipped in an entire tub of Nutella so badly she could cry. Or just a soft pretzel. Or salt and vinegar chips-- actual fucking potato chips, not french fries with British language disease. Although actually fries would do in a pinch.

She swallows hard and tries to get the numbers on the side of the measuring cup to swim into focus. This is not a productive line of thinking. Yes, Vanessa’s at like 45 right now, and yes it feels like she’s about to pass out and/or scream if she doesn’t clean out the backroom of a Dunkin’, or possibly a grain silo, but she’s still going to try and go back to sleep after this, and lying in bed unconscious with more than ten grams of uncovered carbs in her system is going to wake her right back up in two hours at 238. And that will just top this night with one helluva fucking cherry.

Vanessa remembers without a hint of fondness the lecture on insulin sensitivity she had been given by her endocrinologist back at sixteen. Oh, regular exercise makes a little hit you harder? Well you won’t believe what hiking through jungles and climbing through the ventilation systems of people who thought the Trail of Tears was a soft solution will do!

She fumbles for her phone and slides open the Dexcom app. There isn’t even a number anymore, just the word “LOW” in all caps. Vanessa does actually want to cry now. Her limbs feel like they’re made of melting jello, sweat pouring down her back in waves of heat. The inside of her chest feels like it’s shaking alongside every other part of her body, hands refusing to stay still long enough to make an accurate pour.

A bit of juice sloshes out of the bottle and onto the counter, and Vanessa winces at the thought of having to clean that up as well. A whore in church would offer her a fan right now. 

The strange, cottony feeling in her ears muffles the footsteps from the doorway until a hand on her shoulder makes her jump. Or, at least, she would jump if the idea of any sort of movement were a remote possibility.

“Nessa, darling, are you alright?” Karla asks, her fingers cool and dry against Vanessa’s burning skin. Language, English or German, doesn’t feel doable right now, but she gives it a go.

“‘M good, jus’ low,” she says in what’s probably heavily slurred, but her tongue feels like it weighs a hundred pounds and her brain resembles the state that arrives only with six consecutive shots of tequila. She gives the measuring cup another squint and misses the rim by several inches. Fuck.

“Your blood sugar?” Karla guesses, voice pitched low and blessedly soft. Vanessa nods. 

“We are not living, laughing, or loving tonight. I would kick so many fuckin’ babies square in the goddamn chest for an entire cylinder of cookie dough. I want a lobotomy.” These three sentences don’t make sense following each other, but Karla seems to understand anyway. She moves her hand to guide Vanessa’s into setting down the orange juice, then away.

“Please, love, let me; we’ll need a towel anyway at this rate.” She takes the carton, nodding and interrupting with, “One fourth a cup, I know,” when Vanessa begins to speak. 

Karla hands her the cup and Vanessa gulps it down, coughing slightly as some of it gets caught in her throat. Her hands are still shaking as she lets it drop back onto the counter, but Karla encircles her arms around her and carefully helps her to the floor.

Without thinking twice, Vanessa leans her head on her shoulder, letting out a long, pinched breath through her mouth as Karla winds her fingers through her hair. Her nails, blunt and neat, scratch lightly at her scalp, the other arm tight around her shoulders, one hand splayed across her arm.

“I know it’s rather necessary, but I quite like it when you don’t wear a bonnet to bed,” Karla murmurs into the top of her curls. “It’s like your hair is perfect for short nails.”

“Hhng,” Vanessa manages, the sweat on her skin beginning to cool. She shivers and leans in closer to Karla’s warm, blissfully average body heat. The words force themselves out on instinct. “Sorry I woke you up. It’s s’posed to be quieter.”

Karla turns her head to look at her quizzically. “What do you mean? You were gone for almost twenty minutes, and the bed was cold, so I got worried. Your alarm’s never woken me before.”

“Well I sure hope so. I know it’s, like. Annoying.”

Vanessa feels something twist in her stomach, and even though she knows Karla of all people would never pity her, perhaps only succeeded by Hermann, this admission of her limitation’s existence still fills her with discomfort. It’s unspoken, but known just under the surface, like a persistent itch. Acknowledging the negatives of this-- that the prevailing ideas it’s “not a huge deal” and “thriving not despite but because” are utter fallacy and crafted lines-- feels like a betrayal of some sort. That she’s doing it all wrong.

“What’s annoying,” Karla says gently, “is waking up to a cold bed and my girlfriend stranded in the kitchen over 1/4 a cup of orange juice, when I could quite easily and willingly help her. Have you been doing all this yourself this whole time?”

Vanessa nods, tracing her bare toes back and forth across the faux-wooden flooring. “I mean. Yeah.”

“Oh, darling.” Karla pulls her closer. “Please, please don’t take this as patronizing, but you always could have asked. I know how unpleasant these things are for you, and if there’s anything I can do to make it easier, I want to know. I’d be quite a dreadful girlfriend if I didn’t.”

Vanessa turns her head further into Karla’s shoulder, breathing in the clean, ginger scent of her soap; the warm pillow-smell from a few hours of sleep. “You don’t, like, have to. Like I said, I’ve been doing it myself.”

“But you don’t have to. I’m here; I’m willing. More than that, actually-- if, or I suppose when, this happens again, I want to know so I can be there for you.” She brings a hand to Vanessa’s cheek and cups it, turning it up to look her square in the eyes. “Please, Vanessa?”

Vanessa can’t last two seconds against Karla’s huge, brown doe eyes. She gives a tiny sigh. “Okay. If you want to.”

“I do.”

“Then I want measuring cups with bigger numbers. You always leave your glasses on the bedside table.”

Karla ducks her head and chuckles into her hair. “Yes, yes, you’re right. Leave your phone next to them, then. Then we won’t forget.”

Vanessa doesn’t. She also doesn’t sleep with her phone under her pillow anymore. Bad for your sleep habits, actually. And, y’know. Karla asked her not to.

[selfindulgentpoorlywritten]

Alright y’all, I’m gonna post the prologue to this N. Hischier thing I’ve been working on. Please please please tell me if you like it so I know whether to invest the time and energy! Also, all the German is mine, so if it’s bad, it’s because I haven’t practiced German in six years, sorry.

Rating: T

Pairing: Nico Hischier/Reader

Words: 1414

Warnings: alcohol, blood, vague abuse reference

Requested: yes/no

Summary: This isn’t how you expected the wrap party to go, but here you are.

The pain is immediate and knocks the wind out of you; or more into you, with the way it makes you gasp. You feel more than hear the crunch, and that would make you worry if you could think anything other than “ouch”. Except the dude who hit you is talking, so you should say something back, and it’s pretty lucky you speak German cause this guy either doesn’t know English or is too panicked to remember it.

“Mir geht’s gut!” you reassure him, making a placating gesture with the hand not holding the blood in your nose, “Schmerz wie eine Miststück, aber es wird mir gut gehen.” It hurts like a bitch, but I’ll be okay. Speaking German comes naturally after the first sentence or so, once your brain gets with the program. It helps that German makes a whole lot more sense than English, in pretty much every way.

“You should let me take you to the hospital,” he continues in what’s clearly Swiss German, making abortive movements like he wants to reach out and help but isn’t sure his touch would be welcome. Someone at the table he seems to be with hands him some napkins, which he passes to you. Your shirt is already ruined, but the napkins help control the flow of blood so it doesn’t ruin anything around you.

“No, it’s fine,” you insist, surprised at how well you’re speaking, “The hospital is literally down the street, I can walk.” You leave out the part where your nose is definitely broken, because the guy already looks like he’s on the verge of a panic attack.

“Hey, Switzerland v. Germany,” another guy from the table calls, standing and looking at the guy who’d elbowed you in the face like a little brother he’s responsible for, “Pretty sure someone should be taking this chick to the ER.” Usually being called a “chick” would annoy you, but he says it so neutrally it’s somehow not at all irritating.

“I’m trying to take her,” Elbow-guy responds, almost defensive. If they looked at all alike, you really would think they were siblings.

“There’s a 24-hour Urgent Care down the street,” you say, adjusting the napkins as the blood refuses to stop, “I can walk myself.” You’re not exactly a wilting flower. They probably can’t see that, though, because of the leather jacket you’re wearing-- which is totally ruined now too, fuck. They’re probably misunderstanding the thickness of your thighs and bagginess of your shirt as hiding extra softness, rather than meaning you could bench press or squat any one of them. Not that that says anything about your pain tolerance, ‘cause often the big strong guys are the ones who cry at any pain. The number of tattoos littering your body however, that does say a little something.

“I’ll let all of you walk with me if y’all just let me go,” you huff, because the point of the matter is that you need to go get your nose set and this is getting kind of ridiculous.

“Good, I’m coming then,” Elbow-guy says immediately, taking a resolute step forward. You shrug and shoot a text to your friends at the bar as you head toward the door. Elbow-guy rushes ahead to open and hold the door for you. You look to the side and make momentary eye contact with Big-brother-guy before you both roll your eyes.

You really have no idea why you’re calling them Elbow-guy and Big-brother- guy when you know exactly who they are. Calling them by their names just seems… weird? Like “Nico” and “Taylor” seems too familiar, but “Mr. Hischier” and “Mr. Hall” seems oddly formal, y’know? Probably best to stick with Elbow-guy and Big-brother-guy.

“I’m really sorry,” Elbow-guy says, and he seems sincere, except now all you can think about is how weird it feels to call him Elbow-guy.

“It’s fine, dude,” you reassure him again, “It’s not like you did it on purpose. You’re not like some serial face-elbower.” You mean it as a joke, but his face seems conflicted. Big-brother-guy laughs, though, so that’s good.

“Yeah, you caught us,” he jokes back, “We’re out prowling the bars, looking for just the right face to elbow.” You smile and, not one to be outdone, continue the ribbing.

“I mean, there are a lot of factors,” you say, faux-serious, “The nose itself, the person it’s attached to, the way they sound when they have to breathe out of their mouth…”

“Oh yeah,” Big-brother-guy grins in that big-brother way, “How fun they’ll be to walk to Urgent Care-- how close you are to an Urgent Care-- it’s a whole thing.” The two of you laugh, yours infinitely worse than his with the whole ‘breathing through your mouth’ thing. Elbow-guy looks annoyed but also like he’s trying not to laugh when he mutters “I hate you” under his breath. You and Big-brother laugh again.

“Man, first you break my nose, now you say you hate me?” you try to act offended, but you can’t quite stop smiling, “I’ve been taken to dinner for less.” You weren’t kidding when you said the place was right up the street, the sign already burning bright a scant few yards away.

“Well,” you stop in front of the door, “This is my stop. Thanks for the company.” You give a little mock-salute and turn to open the door. You hear the two of them talking in hushed tones behind you, but you let the door shut them out and head toward the check-in.

The secretary is kind enough, definitely tired but not outright nasty. She takes your ID and insurance card and scans them, going about the usual song and dance of figuring out coverage and co-pays and all that bullshit. You hand over your card for the co-pay, idly weighing the pros and cons of carrying more cash on you, like you have a thousand times before. She instructs you to take a seat “with your boyfriend”, which is super weird, until you turn around and see Big-brother is still there. You don’t bother correcting her before you go plop down in the chair to his left.

“You like sports?” he asks, just too intentionally casual. You laugh, even though the situation isn’t particularly funny.

“I’m not gonna, like, sue him,” you assure him, kind of loving just how much he fits the Big Brother role.

“Yeah, everyone always thinks that,” he says, trying for smarmy, probably, but ending up bitter. You would wonder how often people try to bring up litigation against players, but it’s really none of your business, and you have enough to worry about already, so you push it out of your mind.

“Dude,” you sigh, “I have insurance, so I don’t need help with bills. I’m kind of trying to make my own name for my own work, so a scandal is pretty much the opposite of what I want. Also, I’m not an asshole. Your boy is safe.” A tech opens a door from the opposite side and calls your name, so you stand and walk backward toward the door.

“Go back to the bar,” you say, “Have a drink for me.” You turn as soon as you’re finished talking, not keen on also running into something tonight.

The exam goes about as well as it can. Your nose is broken, but nothing too severe. They bandage it and a kindly-looking woman comes in and asks you all sorts of questions about who you live with and how they treat you and all about your “boyfriend”. You just grin and bear it, reminding yourself to be glad this process exists for those who need it, and to be grateful that you don’t need it.

Once you’re all wrapped up and ready to go, you stop by the check-out counter, which is just the back side of the check-in counter. At this time of night on a weekday, it’s the same secretary, and she talks excitedly about “those sweet boys” who have apparently left you flowers, which, where the hell did they get a bouquet of carnations at midnight on a Tuesday? The more important part seems to be the slip of paper tucked among the petals, with nothing but a phone number and the message “call me any time :) -Nico”. You roll your eyes and shove the paper in your jeans pocket with no intention of ever using it, but can’t bring yourself to toss the flowers.

[nnegan13]

the mood is hella depressing rn, save us with some fics before the beach date :( (half joking haha, you'll post when they're complete, no pressure, and they've all been wonderful so far!)

ok sorry that I didn’t respond before the beach date but here’s something for you bc this is fucking distracting me 

(also thank you for being so kind ily

@edonori @cachekakusu for you bc it’s incantava depression hours lads 

ft. eleonora “no brain cells only swearing” sava and edoardo “doesn’t actually know how to flirt” incanti 

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30 

21:02 

DOWNTOWN MILAN 

20:59, message from Eva 

[pic] 

Don’t be impressed or anything 

But edo taught me how to make tiramisu tonight 

And it’s fucking delicious

Bring Stephan over and have some 👅👅👅 

Eleonora shoves her phone into her pocket as Stephan exits the little pastry shop, paper bag in hand, and wonders for the fifth time that night why she bailed on dinner. Sure, it’s nice to be with Stephan again, he was her closest friend from the program—more than a friend, if she’s being truly honest—but they made fucking tiramisu—her favorite and Eva knows it’s her favorite even though it’s only been two months since they started living together, this is clearly bait and it’s working—and Stephan is insisting on taking her to tourist trap after tourist trap. She’s lived in Milan for three years now, a cathedral is a cathedral no matter how fancy they look, and she doesn’t want to talk about how the decoration on this particular set of buttresses compares to the decoration on the buttresses from the church they were at previously. 

Not to mention it’s fucking nine o’clock at night and all the cathedrals are closed and he’s offering this commentary from beyond their fancy fences in English because his Italian is shit and she only wants to die a little bit. 

“Here,” Stephan says, offering the bag to her with a smile, and Eleonora peeks inside at the two cannoli he got, thinks of Eva’s message, and reaches inside to grab one. Edoardo’s place is way too close for her not to be tempted.

“So,” she starts, biting into the cannolo and getting filling all over her chin. Stephan laughs a little, as does she, but before he can do something like wipe it off for her, she swipes the filling up her chin and into her already full mouth, turning away so he can’t see more of the mess. 

God, this night is going well. 

She chews and swallows hastily, looking back to him with her hand over her mouth. “Sorry.” 

“No, you’re fine,” he says. “Perhaps I should’ve got napkins.” 

“Maybe.” She offers him a little smile, but judging by the look on his face it probably turned into a grimace. She starts walking again just so that she can stop making stupid expressions. “Listen, you said you wanted to try authentic Italian food, right?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Okay, good.” She gestures with her cannolo and thinks of how best to phrase her proposition without it sounding like she’s trying to escape their outing. “Now, these are pretty good, but my friend just told me he made tiramisu tonight and he’s the best at cooking, baking, you name it.” Hopefully Eva lives up to the hype, or that Edoardo had a hand in most of the preparation. “Do you want to go try it?” 

Stephan sounds hesitant. “Would we be interrupting anything?” 

“No, no, he always invites people over when he makes stuff,” she says. “He even said I should bring you.” 

Stephan latches onto the wrong part of the sentence. “You’ve told your friends about me?” 

Shit, her eyes laser on the sidewalk. “Um, yeah, when we were making plans for this week.” 

“Okay.” His tone is smug and she takes another bite of her cannolo to avoid saying anything more. “Sounds fun.” 

It’s more of a relief than it should be to know that she’ll make it to Edoardo’s tonight. “Great! His place is right around here.”

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30 

21:37 

VILLA BOYS’ APARTMENT 

Everyone keeps trying their English out on Stephan. At first it’s amusing, watching him try to navigate Chicco and Rocco shouting every statistic they know about the football teams in the UK at him, and then Luca practicing his various accents (Russian is Eleonora’s favorite) for Stephan’s approval, and then Silvia and Federica having the bright idea that they’ll talk at him in English and he’ll answer back in his terrible Italian and they’ll give each other tips. 

Then it becomes her downright favorite thing that’s happened tonight because everyone is so invested in talking to him that Eleonora doesn’t have to anymore. Whether or not that makes her a bad person is a moral quandary she’ll explore later. For now? 

“Oh, sorry, didn’t see you there.” Edoardo bumps into her, tone overly casual, startling her enough that she drops her fork, and leans against the counter next to her. He says, surprised, “Oh, shit, sorry,” and bends to pick it up off the floor.

She stares at the mop of curls on his head and regrets, again, not coming to dinner earlier. He holds it out to her, a little smile on his face. What the fuck is he up to? “Here.” 

“Ah, yes, exactly what I wanted,” she says, raising her eyebrows at him. “Floor fork to go with my fantastic tiramisu.” 

“Glad to know you think it’s fantastic.” He places the fork in the sink behind them and pulls another out of a drawer. A beat passes and he doesn’t hand it to her.

“Glad to know you don’t understand sarcasm.” It really is good tiramisu, the best she’s had in a while, but he’s holding her fork hostage and that is uncalled for. She holds her hand out, palm up. “Can I have that?” 

“It’ll cost you.” 

She narrows her eyes at him, gaze lingering on the little smile that’s come on his face again, and thinks. Seriously, what the fuck is he up to? “What?” 

He nods at the plate in her other hand. “Half your piece.” 

That fucker, she just barely started eating it when he made her drop her fork! He narrows his eyes as well, smile growing into something more like a teasing grin, and she relents. “Fine.” 

Shifting forward, Eleonora moves to lean her forearms on the island countertop in front of them, setting her plate down so that when Edoardo mimics her, it rests between them. She has to force her eyes from his forearms when he presses them into the countertop. He brandishes the fork, raising his eyebrows at her, when they’re interrupted.

“I think we’re gonna get going, guys,” Martino calls from the kitchen doorway and she looks over to find him and Niccolo standing very, very close to one another, jackets pulled haphazardly on, and cheeks slightly red. She wonders if they also took advantage of the hubbub around Stephan to do more…exciting things than practice their English. 

A chorus of goodbyes sends them off, Elia taking a dramatic moment to give them each a bear hug, and as the door closes behind them, Edoardo says to her, “One time I caught them in my room. During a party.” 

“In your room.” 

“In my room.” He shrugs, stabbing the fork into the tiramisu. “Not as bad as the time I walked in on Eva and some random guy, though.” 

She grimaces. “Also in your room?” 

“Also in my room.” 

Shaking her head, she pushes the plate closer to him as he puts the fork in his mouth. “Just for that, you can have as much as you want.” 

He laughs a little but hands the fork over as he chews and her eyes catch on his smile as he looks at her. Something wiggles in her chest and she takes her own bite to distract herself. 

Taking the fork back when she hands it to him, he asks, “How’s it been with Stephan?” 

“Um—” she swallows, tiramisu suddenly ash in her mouth, and that thing in her chest wiggles again. Why is he asking her this? “What do you mean?” 

“I mean, you said you dated him back in high school, right?” He asks, glancing away from her. “Isn’t that what this whole week is?” He stabs at the plate again and she looks at the countertop. “A whole bunch of dates?” 

Maybe to Stephan. Fuck, is he thinking that? Does Edoardo seriously think she’s trying to date Stephan? “No, no. He’s just been coming to Italy every year for so long that it’s kind of like a habit at this point.” 

She bites her lip again and looks up just as he looks over, turning the fork upside down and putting it into his mouth, and, shit, she’s always known deep down somewhere inside her that Edoardo is attractive, but watching him pull a fork out of his mouth should not be that hot. More wiggling in her chest. “I don’t—I don’t know if we’ll do it again.” 

“Why not?” 

She shrugs and turns her gaze to the countertop, playing with her fingers and trying to say something coherent. Because the entire time I was on a decently romantic outing with him, I was thinking of being back here in your apartment. “We’ve both changed over the years, I don’t know if there’s much connection anymore.” 

A beat passes where neither of them say anything and, against all common sense, she glances over at him again. He must’ve had a rather large bite of tiramisu, because there’s filling dotted at the corner of his mouth and a little on his bottom lip. “You have—”

Her brain must’ve stopped computing. That’s exactly what happened. Because a normal person with a working brain would’ve just pointed at it, let Edoardo wipe it away himself, and left it at that. But, no— 

Eleonora finds herself reaching over, swiping the filling off his very soft lip with her thumb, making eye contact, and fucking sticking her thumb in her mouth. What are napkins? What is sanity? What is a normal goddamn human interaction? She’s never heard of any of those. 

His lips part just a hair as she pulls her thumb, clean now, from her mouth, and for the second time that night, she wants to die a little. What the fuck is she doing? 

Before she can make an even greater fool of herself, Stephan returns to the kitchen. “Nora?” 

“Hm?” She jumps at the chance to look away from Edoardo, watching her with something she might pin as adoration in his eyes (if she allowed herself time to think about it), and pushes off from the counter. 

“I’ve got to get going, we’re starting pretty early in the morning.” 

“Right.” He’s speaking in English and it takes her a moment to translate. What is he talking about? Why is he telling her this? Glancing down, she sees that Edoardo holds so much tension in his shoulders and swallows, nodding at Stephan. “Right. Um, let me just get my stuff.”  

Stephan nods as well, eyes darting between her and Edoardo, and heads back into the living room when she doesn’t move. 

Edoardo must feel her stare drilling into his back because he stands, coming to his full height, and turns to her. For a moment, her heart pounds so loudly she thinks he might hear it. But then he quirks an eyebrow at her, and repeats with a terrible English accent, “Nora?”

“It’s what I went by over there,” she says as a teasing grin spreads on his face. He’s laughing at her, and she shoves his shoulder lightly. “Don’t be an ass about it.” 

He shakes his head, still grinning. “Go get your stuff.” 

She almost forgot she has to leave now, and it makes her brain short circuit, again, to hear him say it. Surges forward, she wraps her arms around his shoulders, and it takes a moment for his arms to come around her, large hands palming her back. This is the first time she’s really hugged him like this, entire body thrown into it, and there’s more damn wiggles in her chest. 

This is shaping up to be the most confusing night ever. 

There’s a cough from the doorway and when she looks over, Stephan is standing there, her jacket and bag in hand. Hastily, she draws back from Edoardo, somehow already missing the gentle pressure of his hands as they drop to his side. His head is bowed as he leans his hip into the counter, but he’s looking up at her through his lashes with a little smile, and she brushes a strand of hair from her face. “Um, thanks for inviting us.” 

He bites his lip. “Anytime.” 

In the living room, Eleonora finds herself giving everyone massive hugs, Stephan watching from the front door, so he doesn’t peg her goodbye to Edoardo as out of sorts. She doesn’t want him asking questions she doesn’t have the answers to. 

Edoardo watches as well, leaning against the kitchen doorway with an expression akin to smugness as her confused friends take her giant hugs instead of the typical cheek kiss in stride. Chicco and Federico especially make a big deal out of it, squishing her in a group hug between them, and Edoardo winks at her as she catches his eye. 

What a fucking mess. 

Stephan says as they make it into the stairwell, “Your friends are fun.” 

They’re a nightmare, is what they are. “Thanks.” 

[maladaptive-ninja-returns]

Devil’s No 1(7)

Chapter 7: Abundance

Loki x fem!Reader, Bucky x fem!Reader

Theme: The definitions of devils, angels, demons etc. are twisted here in this world. But some things remain the same.

Series: Will contain violence, death, destruction, softness, fluff, smut, everything that my mind can conjure, really.

Chapter warnings: None... is a kink a warning?

A/N: This was written two years ago (I think) on @phantomrose96 ‘s prompt/situation of a shy girl summoning the devil to be friends with him (and something else that he does but I’ll leave that part out for you guys to have fun with). But I- being thirsty for tragedies- twisted things a little.

Word Count: Work tomorrow. ugh! Sundays always make me feel lonely. So lonely. I need a hug.

MASTERLIST in bio, love. Tags are open

credits to @russian-hiddlestoner for the picture

It was a journey. Through a tunnel, maybe? Or something deeper in the ground. Well, that's what it felt like. Like when you travelled in a train and passed a junction, or where the tracks met, maybe even a tunnel there! That was how you were feeling. Or rather, your conscience was feeling? Or should we call it your soul?

Let's just skip to the part where you felt it all and woke up.

...

WAKE UP!

A loud gasp rose from your lungs as your eyes threw themselves wide open.

"There you are," you heard the dark honey voice of the devil himself from somewhere around- hopefully he isn't still inside you, "I was worried about you."

By the layers in Loki's voice, you could clearly tell how he was mocking you but your brain was on too much of a spin to even consider registering that idea right now.

"Ughh," you responded, trying to get up from the sofa. "What happeuuh-" you barely stood straight before feeling yourself falling down again if not for Loki breaking your fall, catching you in his slender but surprisingly strong arms.

"Woah! Now, now. We haven't even had proper drinks yet."

You took the support of his arms- which were eerily stone-like under all that expensive fabric that he was wearing- and scrunched your nose as you stood up, this time slowly. "We had freaking Jagër didn't we?"

"And that's got you so blurry already," he announced, sitting down, and took you by your shoulder with him, causing you to look at him with a bit of a diluted and confused rage, "we really need to work on your drinking capacity."

You don't know who you shared a look with- God, an angel or any entity that was invisible right now- but you were certain of the age-old fact that the devil was not a good influence on you.

"That's the only way I get that thing out of your system."

Now hold on. What was that?

"What? What thing?"

Hmm...maybe not as bad an influence?

"That thing inside you make you all-" he flayed his hands like an English noble while scrunching his nose just a bit- "so depressing and boring."

Your neck hurt having to turn to look at him but your ego was taking none of it. "Excuse me?"

But did he show any empathy for you? Unless that devilish smirk- that was meant kill thousands of weak-hearted earthly creatures when gazed upon- was his way of showing you how he felt for you, he clearly wasn't anywhere close to 'e'.

Oh, what am I even expecting! And from whom?!

Loki turned to you and relaxed into the sofa, his back being supported by the arms of your comfortable furniture.

"So, humans don't count being saved by the devil from a demon empathy?"

The broken harp inside you made the worst possible sound any instrument could.

"Please stop doing that," you begged, turning away from his face, heat radiating from your cheeks from the embarrassment.

"Why?"

"Those are my private thoughts," you tried to stress but your voice broke.

Loki got up and leaned a little closer to you, making you shift a bit to the other side- never stopping him from leaning closer. "Oh but I like hearing how irresistible you find my form," he nearly moans into your ear.

Holy Buddha! Lord of mercy!

"Aw," he pretended to groan- quite seductively though- in your ears, "don't take his name," whispering while moving your stray strands of hair away from your face, "he always kills my party mood by giving me his eerie smile and asking me how I'm doing. Like he cares."

He nearly spat out the last sentence and you sat there with raised brows, wondering what choice had you made that brought you straight in the arms of the devil while he narrated his dislike for Buddha.

"It was a Wednesday and you had your exams that week," Loki began, still playing with your hair.

"No, stop!" You shifted to the other end of the couch, raising your leg over the sofa to block his body, "stop telling me what I chose wrong. Stop telling me how excessively great Buddha is and definitely stop reading my thoughts."

The rims of Loki's eyes light up in a fiery-green glow, looking at you with a tilted curiousness. "Are you ordering me, darling?"

Great. Now he brings his powers in play.

"I am requesting you," you stress, folding your hands in front of him, "this is really uncomfortable and my head hurts and...wait." The tone of your voice changed, so did that pleasing colour in your eyes that Loki was loving till you dropped it wear a hint of confused blue before turning into a suspicious grey. "What exactly did you do inside me?"

"Woah," Loki raised his brow, "I didn't know you were into those kind of...kinks."

You looked like a sad confused potato till it dawned on you how of context the devil was taking your words.

"Seriously? I am dying here from this unending pain and all you can think of is sex jokes," you nearly shout with whatever energy you have left inside you.

Loki flicked his finger and within seconds there were vines coming out of the floor, wrapping around your limbs like snakes ready to devour you whole. "Stop," you said with a hint of rage but the vines only grew tighter, beginning to dig into your skin. "Loki, please," you begged this time, watching them force your hands behind your back.

"Loki," you cried softly with just the right amount of fear burning in your eyes. Exactly what Loki wanted.

And so, he finally shifted, fixing his arms around you as his hovering figure came to a stop above you, blazing eyes looking at you with the intensity of burning everything between your skin and his.

"Do not forget, pet," he cooed, too close to you, "that I am the one who holds the chains to your life. And if I want, I can yank them as hard as I please because in the end, your cries will only deliver me pleasure."

You should have been afraid. You should have been shivering in fear and panic; your heart should have been pounding for watching death right in the eyes. But this scorching sensation that you felt inside you did not seem fear like. The shiver was definitely not because of panic or your nerves feeling this unhinged tide. And all you could do was look at him while blinking with visible stupidity, gulping down something to moisten your dry throat while Loki's eyes seemed to shift.

"See?" He nearly sang, "Now that's the colour I love to see." He inhaled your essence in, moaning as he felt it register inside him, making you question his senses- and for this one very discreet almost 'invisible in the darkness of the moonless night' reason, made you question yours. "Smells like the right amount of fear," he chuckled, "with a hint of something I can't really put my finger on."

Her kink of being tied up and aroused by you! Your insides shouted.

Shut up! Shut up!

"Hm," Loki looked at you with fresh eagerness, nearly killing you with the intensity of embarrassment about to explode inside your head, "I have to say you seem interesting to play with without your thoughts too. So, I'll keep this thing off till as long as I like."

He finally got up and away. You were relieved.

Danggit, your inner voice didn't seem, though, I thought he'll finally kiss you without context!

Awesome, you hit back at her, just the person I want you to be rooting for!

You know if she had a physical form, she would be rolling her eyes at you now because both of you knew you had felt something glow inside your chest- and heat up inside your legs- at the mention of being at his mercy.

Shaking your head, you tried to bring yourself to reality.

No, I am better than this. I have to be.

"So," Loki chugged a glass of your Jager, "what do you want to do now?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I'm not going to wait for you to decide on getting drunk and all that because I know the moment you hit the limit you will be crying your eyes out and I am not in the mood to ruin my suit for pent up tears tonight," he declared, letting his hands show you the piece of work layering his body, "more critical tears of underpaid labourers and cattle have gone into the making of this."

You shared that look again, with no one, in particular, being done with the devil for the night and yet knowing that there were still so many more hours to go.

"Fine," you got up, realising the vines had long since vanished, leaving barely any scars on your wrists and ankles, "we can go somewhere then? Uhh...someplace you'd like to visit? There's a pizza place here that's open at this time of the night."

You went on and on while Loki's concern for you modified into a chuckle transforming into laughter. "Oh, you poor human. You are about to die in five days and you are still worried about the things I want to see? Honestly, woman, who died and made you the queen of ethics? Wait, is there a course for such things now?"

He wasn't wrong. Because he admitted it right now, it all started to seem more real. You were going to die in five days. He was going to take your soul to hell and God knows do what all with it. Peter's disappearance and your state then had created such a perfect picture for it to make sense but now...

"Are you having second thoughts, darling?"

His words broke you out of this nauseating spell that you cast upon yourself and you found yourself standing in the kitchenette with your shot glass in your hand looking down at the floor where broken glass lay in a puddle of water along with one of your ceramic angels. You picked up the ceramic figurine to look at, a familiar old ache replacing whatever little glow had risen inside your chest.

The angel seemed to be looking at you, begging you not to do this.

"Yes," you finally declared, throwing the figurine in the bin, "I'm sure."

.

The angel on the watch sat by the lake on the lone bench, going through his device, looking at various statistics while someone hummed in the back somewhere, going about its own business.

"And another one and another one and another bites the dust..."

The humming was not as serene for the angel at work as he wanted it to be, but he was trying to get through it somehow. It was a really special person after all. One couldn't just tell him to stop humming.

"Would you stop humming," the angel announced, "I am trying to work here, Peter!"

Everything went silent, letting the angle heave a sigh of relief and go back to his tablet.

The tree behind him rustled before Peter popped out of it upside down. "Whatcha dooooooin', Happy?"

"Tryna' work."

"Can I help?"

"You've helped us already."

"No, I didn't."

"Yes, you did. No go cuddle spiders...or something."

"Well, technically our friend did. You know, that woman who goes by the name-"

"Peter I just want a few moments of silence to track down what exactly does Tony want from that stupid-"

"Bad word."

"Excuse me?"

"You said stupid, put some of your essences in the swear jar."

"Yeah, right. That's not gonna happen. Now please just shut u-"

"Oh shoot! Happy-"

"Aha! Now you take out your essence young man and put them in the swear-"

"No, Happy, look!"

The angel followed Peter's gaze to the lake as he watched a figure soaking in it coming out with scars and wounds being healed by the water. The figure- a man, apparently- was heaving for breaths, his glass eyes searching for someone, anyone.

"Hello!" he shouted, the tiredness in his voice abruptly changing his pitch. "Is there anybody there?!"

"Should we let him in?" Peter asked in a whisper.

"Hello! Mr Stark?" he shouted again, catching Happy and Peter's hundred per cent attention, "it's me, Scott. Can you please let me in? There is some very very important news I have to share with you."

Happy turned to his device to open the gate of mirage.

The man, still tired as he was, lit up on seeing Peter and Happy standing in front of him.

"Oh! Thank God!" he almost cried, putting all his energy in his legs to walk towards, "thank you! Thank you so much! I need to s-speak to Tony Stark."

"Identification please," Happy announced, earning a confused stare from Peter.

"Happy, he can barely walk."

"I don't care. Whoever has to meet Tony has to go through me."

"But Happy!"

"It's okay," the man smiled at Peter, still breathing heavily, "it's okay."

"My name is Scott. Scott Lang. I'm Y/N's guardian angel," he declared before falling on the ground and losing all consciousness.

[poppytheorist]

Scary Mask

I.

I don’t know what to say when people come apart

The road is long, the road is dark

And these are just the words to somebody else’s song

 Before I get into it, I’d like to quickly note that this is not best post to start with. Same goes for the one on “Me Laughing.” My older posts are much friendlier reads and not nearly as dense.

Okay, let’s go.

At first I thought “Scary Mask” was straightforward, i.e. Poppy uses her persona (“I wear my scary mask”) as a defense when she finds herself in uncomfortable situations (“when I’m afraid I don’t belong”). “Well that was anticlimactic.” Indeed. But, of course, this is Poppy we are talking about, and nothing with Poppy is quite so simple.

The problem with basic interpretations that sum up a song with single sentence is that such readings miss all the nuances of the work, i.e., they leave out all the fun little twists in the lyrics, the double-meanings in the lines, etc. Basically, simplistic interpretations of lyrics ignore all the poetry, which is part of what allows music to transcend language. Poetic lyrics also provide us with new pieces of language so that we can better understand the increasingly complex world around us. Nestled in the gaps between our definitions lies the inexpressible that only poetry can render sensible.

Well-written (read: poetic) lyrics are part of what allows songs to completely baffle us; they allow songs to elude simple characterization and slip the shackles of obsessive categorization (e.g., genre). A truly great piece of music leaves us speechless; we cannot simply explain it to someone. Instead, the best we can do is say, “you know what? Just listen to this,” to which they are only able to reply, “wow… you’re right.”

This is why I love metaphors and dualities. Yes, I realize the previous sentence just caused every person who hated English in school to audibly cringe. Look, I’ve been there, I get it. I used to think English was a cruel joke played at everyone’s expense and that it was stupid because ‘there is no right answer.’ Then one day, all of that changed. Almost as though a switch was suddenly flicked ‘on’ in my brain. It wasn’t until I understood English that I finally appreciated it. I’ve never wanted to go back, so hear me out.

Metaphors are essentially a way of controlling the associations formed by your brain when you read or hear a word. They can make you associate simple pieces of language with something extraordinary, and make you see things in a way you would never have previously considered.

If you’d like to get fancy, you can start introducing dualities; that is, setting two concepts on opposing ends of a spectrum. When you do so, you allow the reader to consider new and (seemingly) impossible gradations, all born from the struggle between two relatively ordinary ideas.

Take, for example, Poppy’s ‘poetry-ecstasy’ duality that she introduced in “X.” This was the first thing that made me take a more serious look at her work, i.e., “I think something else is going on here…” We know poetry and ecstasy are meant to be diametrically opposed in “X” because the colors in the music video change in sync with Poppy’s delivery.

If YouTube subtitles weren’t broken, they would read: “poetry, poetry, poetry”

Likewise: “ecstasy, ecstasy, ecstasy”

It’s not obvious that poetry is the opposite of ecstasy unless you’re in Wonderland in which case, you messed up somewhere. Moving on, when you set two concepts against each other like that, you introduce a new interplay between the two ideas. Now the audience is forced to see things from a new perspective, one they would not have otherwise considered. Or, they just ignore it, as is usually the case, but I digress.

With all this in mind, further study into “Scary Mask” reveals that some parts of the more basic reading don’t quite add up. Take, for example, lines like, “M-A-S-K, am I okay?” or “You ain’t gonna see me tonight”; these lines refuse to fit neatly into the obvious interpretation e.g., why spell out ‘mask’? Why are [they] not going to see “you” “tonight?” Most people would choose to ignore these outliers or simply shrug and go about their day. If this post’s existence didn’t clue you in, we won’t be doing much ‘shrugging’ or ‘ignoring.’

You’ve probably noticed this already, but I try to forge readings of Poppy’s work that fit as many different pieces as possible into them. To craft interpretations that capture the interplay between all the elements in a song. Often, this requires approaching the song from multiple angles, some even being right. If this post is good, each interpretation should form its own colored shard of glass, leaving the reader with a beautiful explanative mosaic. If this post is bad, grab a broom and wear shoes for a week.

Hilariously, doing justice to the more abstract bits of art usually means I have to use figurative language to explain other figurative language. “Sounds meta.” Indeed. Some puzzles can only be done justice with other puzzles, which is also why my writing frequently dips into obscurity. Close reading yields wonders, but means interpreting ‘carefully’ and ‘openly.’ “Sounds like a lot of work.” It is, but anybody can come up with a vague idea of what a song is ‘about,’ e.g., “this one’s about love!” How insightful, you should post that on Genius, that’s just what they’re looking for. I mean, really, at that point what are you even getting out of the song? A few minutes of pleasure before you move onto the next one? Is that it? Are you going to just spend your entire life constantly devouring one helping after another, waiting hungrily for your favorite artists to dish up your next meal?

I may be going to hell, but at least I won’t be stuck doing that.

II.

Rise and shine—

get out of bed!

Take my hand, 

there’s darkness ahead.

 “Scary Mask” is one of Poppy’s best songs. No, I’m not interested in arguing about this. It is also one of Poppy’s most important songs. This, however, I am interested in arguing about.

For the sake of the following discussion, I will be ignoring most of Poppy’s singles. “Metal” and “Immature Couture” and [other singles] are good but they complicate things and I don’t have time to deal with them, despite having the time to tell you how little time I have. Fancy people would probably call such exclusions “exceptionally non-rigorous,” but I’m over it.

I tried to make this section not-boring, dunno if I was successful; my writing takes on the flavor of whoever I read last, hence why the “Me Laughing” post reads like schizophrenia. Lately, I’ve been feeling especially masochistic, so I’ve been reading [redacted]. Expect that to shine through.

Let’s zoom out for a bit: “Scary Mask” is the flagship song of Poppy’s Choke EP, though I am sympathetic to arguments for “Meat.” “Scary Mask” ties the whole EP together and makes it possible. It’s critical to Choke’s ‘flow.’ This isn’t a given, I’ll explain/pretend to explain.

The structure of Choke almost perfectly mimics that of a five-act play. Yeah, like that Shakespeare guy. The EP contains exposition, rising action, a climax, falling action, and a conclusion. The methodically squeezing “Choke” sets the mood and introduces a problem statement to color the rest of the EP. With its pendulum-like bassline and hypnotizing array of voices, “Voicemail” depicts a forsaken mind becoming further and further dissociated from reality. A complete breakdown occurs in “Scary Mask,” the explosive climax of the EP and, at least so far, Poppy's work. Following “Scary Mask” comes the bleak and gruesome “Meat,” which is clearly akin to the falling action. And finally, we are given “The Holy Mountain,” the EP’s pessimistic and wistful send-off.

As for the context in which “Scary Mask” was created, Choke comes after two pop-y records, Bubblebath and poppy.computer, and a half-pop, half-??? disc, Am I A Girl. After AIAG, Poppy had a choice: back off and return to pop or double-down and bring on the metal. Thankfully, she chose the latter and made Choke. Let’s all take a minute to praise AIAG for even allowing Poppy such options, for flowing together so smoothly, etc. Okay, séance over, let’s return: “Scary Mask” carried Choke, without it, the EP would’ve been severely lacking a massive, stand-out song to serve as the EP’s creative apex.

“Scary Mask” is, in a sense, the ‘no turning back’ point for Poppy. Producing “Scary Mask” was like Poppy locking her old style away and throwing out the key; “X” and “Play Destroy” were #wild, but “Scary Mask” was the third strike. Put confusingly, “Scary Mask” was Poppy’s ‘home run’ while also being the ‘final nail in the coffin’ and other idioms. The track is so far removed from the days of Bubblebath and P.C that it actually created a distance, a gap, between nu-Poppy and Pop-y. “X” has pop elements and Poppy cutely ‘ooo-ing’; it was walk back-able. “Scary Mask” has Jason Butler demonically screaming and saying the ‘fuck’ word; fine print says “no refunds.” Or, if you’d prefer analogies that are unlikely to age well: think of a giant iceberg breaking off from the main Arctic glacier and slipping into the cold, dark sea. Once it’s off, it’s not freezing back on. In other words, once Poppy dropped “Scary Mask,” ‘princess with a pistol’ became ‘demonic metal queen.’

I’ll also argue that “Scary Mask” is the least compromising song in Poppy’s current discography. It’s her truest expression of self pre-I Disagree. All artists have to make their music listenable-enough to get bread, just like I need to make my writing readable-enough to get read. Unfortunately, compromise is inevitable, but artists can still create good music. It’s just hard and getting harder. Plus, nobody agrees what ‘good music’ even means because we have no rigorous definition for art so—

When an artist decides to really ‘go for it,’ to make no compromises, and does it well, a beautiful thing happens. That’s what “Scary Mask” is for Poppy; she decided to pull no punches, and the result was, well, “Scary Mask.”

“X” and “Play Destroy” were both successful, but they didn’t guarantee Poppy’s nu-success. “Play Destroy” had Grimes, and “X” could have been an anomaly. If Poppy went back to pop, fans could have passed off her dip into metal as ‘weird’ but ‘kinda cool’ and that would be that. However, Poppy didn’t let up—“Scary Mask” proved she could consistently make quality metal tracks, and now we’re here and Poppy is about to destroy the world or something. Nice.

In summary: “Scary Mask” functions to transition Poppy’s sound, it does a damn good job of it, and I’m definitely looking forward to her new album.

III.

You try to take the best of me

Go away

You try to take the best of me

Go away

 Alright, zoom back in. Yes, “Scary Mask” made it possible for Poppy to throw in crazy distorted guitars and for everyone to love it, but it does more than that. “Scary Mask” also transitions Poppy her(?)self, which sounds strange but it will make sense later, probably.

Now time for the fun part.

Sometimes I like to begin my analysis with a song's verses before circling back to the chorus, as was the case with "The Holy Mountain," however, "Scary Mask" is so crazy that it doesn't even matter where I start. It's what I lovingly refer to as “straight-up bonkers,” like some twisted monstrosity tearing its face off as it stumbles around in the dark. Reminds me of the psychos from Borderlands, an analogy that already has not aged well. Basically, “Scary Mask” is all over the place, so I might as well start from the ‘beginning.’ I'm going to have to pick up the pieces and stitch them into some monster that would do Mary Shelley proud anyway.

Let's dive in.

Poppy opens the song with: “I wear my scary mask when I'm afraid I don't belong.” Okay, seems pretty straightforward so far. There isn’t much to work with here, but maybe we can add some color to this line. BUILD series conducted a relatively listenable interview with Poppy earlier this year. One excerpt to note:

Interview: “Well, why wear a mask?”

Poppy: “Sometimes you just have two faces.”

Interview: “And that’s okay?”

Poppy: “Only sometimes.”

This is why I was debating just skipping “Scary Mask”—the opening line was a little cliché, and it seemed like Poppy had taken Batman Forever literally, neither of which are particularly good signs. However, I want to stress that lacking an interesting message wouldn’t necessarily make “Scary Mask” a ‘bad’ song. This idea may seem very strange, especially in modern society where it appears everyone agrees that deep themes=good art. We’ve been raised with the notion that the best art is art that tells a message, and it’s difficult for us to consider otherwise. However, not only does the conception of ‘depth’ quickly fall apart (as I noted in the “Me Laughing” post), but it’s entirely possible that thematic elements have absolutely zero bearing on the aesthetic quality of a work. In other words, ‘themes’ may not be what make art ‘good.’

Yeah, take a minute and think about that.

Anywho, after deciding I could afford to pay attention, I found many interesting things. Note Poppy’s word-choice. She uses the word “scary,” an almost child-like characterization of something fearful. Indeed, in the music video, Poppy’s hair is hidden or pulled back, giving her a youthful appearance. Look, pictures:

Moreover, peppered throughout the song are Poppy’s pouty squeals and she sings with call an almost ‘whimper-y’ tone, the end of her words marked by a spike in pitch. Obviously, we’d like to ask: why is she presenting herself to us this way?

We find answers in the second half of the line: “when I’m afraid I don’t belong.” Okay, so when she finds herself in situations where she is uncomfortable, where she is struck by the feeling of being small, almost child-like, she resorts to the mask as a defense mechanism. Now we’re getting somewhere, though I would like to ask: why is the mask “scary”?

Being two-faced does not necessarily mean the one face has to resemble Harvey Dent post-toasting, it could simply be a different side of your personality. Perhaps the next line will help:

You can’t read my brain until it’s off

Note Poppy says “brain” instead of any other word such as ‘mind’ or ‘thoughts.’ Using the word ‘brain’ signals a sense of invasiveness. Think: Sylar from Heroes cutting open peoples’ skulls and studying their brains for secrets. I’m sure many obsessive fans have tried digging up details on Poppy’s personal life and many interviewers have tried asking her inappropriate questions. It appears that Poppy wears a “scary mask” as a counter to such intrusions, as if she decided that the only appropriate response to these inappropriate behaviors was a face-to-face with the scary mask.

Holy shit, was this entire song written as a response to the AMP Radio interview? That would be hilarious.

Poppy then repeats that the mask is “not coming off.” Hey, wait a minute…

Okay, so after a fairly badass guitar interlude, Poppy begins feverishly chanting the lines: “I'm never gonna take it off, so don't touch me / Never gonna take it off, stop looking at me.” I’m sure some fans hate me because I’m always banging the drum that Poppy’s work is about obsession, and thus, appear to be attacking them, but come on, how clear would you like the message to be? Go watch “Repeat After Me” if you’re not convinced.

Anyway, in a sense, Poppy’s scary mask (read: freaky persona) operates as a shield from foreign bodies who seek to violate her personal space.

I’m going to leave Jason Butler’s lines for the end because, well, you’ll see.

IV.

In the music video for “Scary Mask,” after Poppy first puts the mask on and has a little breakdown, there are many instances where she is no longer wearing the mask, but is still acting like a possessed teen in desperate need of exorcizing. This is weird, here are some possibilities:

1) Poppy takes the mask off in the music video because she’s pretty and people want to see her lip-syncing.

2) The mask was always on.

We’re going with door #2.

Let’s look at some of the weirder lines, like Poppy chanting the incantation: “M-A-S-K, am I okay?” By spelling out ‘mask,’ Poppy signifies that the “am I okay?” question is directly referencing the mask she wears. In other words: is it okay for Poppy to wear a mask?

We already know Poppy came down pretty hard on one side of the fence when she answered “sometimes” in the BUILD series interview. My equally unambiguous answer is: “it depends.” There are many reasons why wearing a ‘mask’ is a terrible thing that slowly renders you psychologically ‘fucked,’ go read TLP or Lasch if you want more info on that (actually, you should just read them anyway). However, we’ve already established “Scary Mask” was an empowering song for Poppy because it served as a truer artistic outlet for her, so any masquerading should be approached with this in mind.

Alright, so when is it a good thing to wear a mask? How can it be a good thing to pretend to be someone you’re not?

Well, when you’re an artist, you typically create art to express something. Often, this ‘something’ is deeply personal to yourself. You put a lot of yourself into your work. This means criticism of your work can really hurt. After all, if someone calls your [song/painting/writing] ‘trash,’ it’s like calling you ‘trash.’ It feels like that criticism is aimed directly at that piece of yourself you put into your work. Yeah, that sucks. Sometimes it’s so difficult to bear that you avoid creating anything so you don’t have to be faced with such attacks. You forgo creating art because the injurious potential of criticism is too daunting. Without a creative outlet, your feelings remain bottled inside, slowly eating away at you from within. It’s a lose-lose game and everyone’s the player.

So, you ask: “what do I do?”

Well, that’s where the mask comes in.

The artist can use a persona to get around these problems. In other words, putting on a mask can actually allow you to finally be yourself, which seems paradoxical, but I’ll explain.

Take, for example, me. After reading enough of the silly words I write, you may start to form a picture of me in your head. To speculate and fantasize about what I actually look like or how I actually act. Without even knowing your thoughts, I can assure you that any such conceptions are completely inaccurate. I know that I’m not actually as [adjective] as you imagine me to be because I work with a protective persona. The persona allows me to write without worrying too much harsh criticism. Hence, with a persona, I can safely express myself through my work.

The same is true for Poppy. As I’ve noted in previous posts, Poppy has a lot to say about the world. She would like to express these messages artistically, but it’s not always easy to face criticism of her work (and Poppy gets a lot of hate). By adopting the ‘Poppy’ persona, Poppy is able to safely express herself. To finally say what she wants to say. To be who she really wants to be. And when she is faced with scathing criticism, she is able to continue her work undeterred because it feels like the criticism is directed toward Poppy (persona) instead of Poppy (person).

An alternate (and hilarious) reading of the lines “M-A-S-K, am I okay?” and “I’m alright, I’m alright, I’m alright” would be to imagine them as part of a demented question-and-answer period with Poppy. Many of her fans have expressed concerns over the effects of living your life pretending to be a [robot/alien/demonic angel], not to mention the section of Poppy’s fan-base who seem to constantly worry about Poppy being Titanic’s so-called ‘puppet’ and that he is abusive towards her. You can interpret Jason Butler screaming “I’m alright, I’m alright, I’m alright” as Poppy’s response to such concerns. Seems like an appropriate answer to me.

V.

You try to take the best of me

GO AWAY

YOU TRY TO TAKE THE BEST OF ME

GO AWAY

YOU TRY TO TAKE THE BEST OF ME

GO AWAY

 There are some remarkably odd lines in “Scary Mask” that need some serious groundwork to render sensible, so let’s switch gears for a second and complain about pop music. Yes, I know. It’s not exactly brave (let alone novel) to decry pop music as a vapid and soulless caricature of art, but I find it therapeutic. Plus, I’m clearly writing a narrative here. If these words make you indignant, first ask yourself ‘why?’ and then relax. I listen to pop music too, most of which is terrible. Also, I’m talking about the correlation, not the rule. If you fight me with exceptions, I’ll hit you back with trends.

Pop is the most apologetic music genre out there (though mumble rap and country are giving it a run for its money, literally); pop music’s main purpose is stated by its terminology: it exists to be popular. To be as widely palatable as possible so as to garner as many listeners as possible. The implications associated with a genre revolving entirely around popularity for the sake of commercial success are pretty disgusting. I’d even go so far as to say the existence of ‘pop’ as a musical genre is a strong indicator that culture is no longer treated as an essential component to human society, but is instead only another industry, and has been for a while. People love celebrating the façade or appearance of culture (partially so they can consider themselves ‘cultured’), but the truth is that culture now exists mainly as a commodity to be endlessly repackaged and sold back to people under the guise of ‘art.’ “I blame capitalism!” Sure, and you may not even be wrong, but that’s a discussion for another time. The point here is that to successfully create music with value, music that isn’t just a meaningless product, one needs to escape such a hyper-commoditized regime i.e., the corporatized pop-music industry.

Business-wise, Poppy did this by ditching Mad Decent and signing with Sumerian Records, an independent label which will hopefully make her very happy. Music-wise, she also had to transition. Recall: putting on the mask (read: persona) allowed Poppy to be herself and make the music she wanted to. So, to evolve her music, she had to also evolve the mask. After releasing two and a half pop records, people will generally expect, well, more pop. People don’t like when their favorite artists abruptly change, probably because they don’t wish to face the idea that said artists were never making music for them in the first place. Either way, for Poppy to tell tales of an impending apocalypse or drop an insane metal album like I Disagree, she had to ease fans into it. Musically, this is the second half of AIAG and the entirety of Choke, but it’s also a perfect encapsulation of “Scary Mask.” It’s possible that the bipolar nature of songs like “X,” “Concrete,” and “Scary Mask” is only due to Poppy trying to transition her sound without upsetting too many fans. Hence why these songs incorporate lighter sections to balance out the darkness. Perhaps “I Disagree” is as dark as Poppy’s going to get, but given recent news of her hanging out with Nadya Tolokno from Pussy Riot, I doubt it (“don’t know how long until they see the rest of me”).

This is also where Poppy’s YouTube videos come in. While producing new music, she can quickly put out a few videos and slowly ramp up the darkness, facilitating a comfortable change in artistic tone for the fans. Something, something, frogs and hot water.

Considering all of the above, I agree with something @thatpoppyuk said a while back in regards to people saying “Moriah is coming out!” when Poppy dyed her bangs:

Not only is it potentially insensitive to call Poppy ‘Moriah,’ it’s simply inaccurate. For better or worse, people don’t regress, they progress. Poppy is not doing something so #basic as ‘returning to her roots,’ she is becoming who she’s always wanted to be.

VI.

Now that we have completed the necessary groundwork, we are able finish off the rest of the song. Lyrically, “Scary Mask” is rather focused; we’ve actually covered all of Poppy’s lines, so I’d like to examine the role Jason Butler from Fever 333 plays in the song.

I’ve actually refrained from gushing about how good “Scary Mask” is until now, but I don’t think I can contain myself any longer. Fever 333 was an excellent feature that perfectly meshes with Poppy’s harmonics and the chomping guitar riffs. Not only that, but lyrically, Jason Butler brings an insane performance. He brings scary mask to life.

Fever 333’s role in the song is complicated and will take multiple approaches to flesh out. First, consider the scary mask (Jason Butler’s lines) as an entity speaking for Poppy, as though it were some demonic hype-man:

This would then explain the line, “well you heard the woman, so fucking look away.” It appears that Poppy needs someone telling others to “fucking look away,” betraying a sense of dependency. After all, if Poppy could handle such onlookers on her own, she wouldn’t need someone else telling them to ‘beat it.’ We may interpret this as a sign that Poppy has come to rely on the shielding-nature of the mask. She relies on her persona for protection, but reliance gives way to over-reliance. Naturally, substitution and dependency follow.

However, this isn’t wholly satisfying, nor is it very charitable. Let’s consider another, more empowering, approach, this time as Poppy speaking through the mask. In this case, a synthesis is underway between Poppy and her new persona (read: scary mask). During the violent transformation, she screams and struggles as the darkness of the mask washes through her, until the process is complete and both are one. Or, rather, Poppy is transcending her persona through her persona, a process of metamorphic self-realization.

Approaching the relationship between Poppy and the mask as a symbiotic one will perhaps explain one of the most bizarre lines in all of Poppy’s discography (minus every line in “Voicemail,” of course): “You ain’t gonna see me tonight!” I mean, what the hell. It’s difficult to explain how much this line confuses me, words simply elude me. This is one of those lines that normal people would shrug and come up with a half-hearted explanation such as: “well, Poppy is wearing a mask, and because she is wearing a mask, you aren’t going to see her. You know, because she’s wearing a mask.” Poorly-conceived explanations such as these negate the whole point of studying art. You can’t just jerk responsibility when ‘the going gets tough.’ The reward isn’t merely the end result, and people who believe this are the exact same people who Genius exploits. It is the work, the method, the climb, the struggle that is important because it is while grappling with the piece that one learns the most about oneself. With that being said, this line has haunted me for three weeks now, but I think I can do it some justice.

First, we examine the context in which the line appears in the song. The line first appears near the beginning of the song, wedged between a crushing guitar interlude and the Poppy’s staccato-ed “M-A-S-K, am I okay?” build-up. Then the line comes again at the end of Jason Butler’s insane post-chorus breakdown which is interlaced with Poppy’s disembodied screams. This second appearance follows a punchy chorus from Poppy and directly precedes a charged guitar solo and Poppy’s explosive final meltdown. From all this, we notice that “You ain’t gonna see me tonight!” is always delivered amidst a great deal of turmoil, always sprinkled into the middle of a violent episode.

Next, we look at the line itself. “Ain’t” and “gonna” are very colloquial, like the speaker hasn’t been taught to speak ‘properly’ or has lapsed into a state where they are unable to or simply do not care. I’m also picking up a touch of mentally-disturbed giddiness, as if some deranged killer is frothily barking this at you outside your window while his head jerks around. “Well, I’m definitely glad not to live on the ground-floor.” Likewise.

I must comment, however, that “Tonight” is an odd word choice. “Well, maybe they just needed a word that rhymed with ‘alright’?” Remember what I said about giving up when things get difficult? No, “tonight” relates a sense of shadowy immediacy, like a doom drawing near. Perhaps Poppy is about to descend upon the world, shrouding it in darkness with her black angel wings.

Hence, “You ain’t gonna see me tonight” relates the sense of foreboding violence that comes with Poppy’s new persona. This makes a lot of sense in the context of Poppy’s work because I Disagree is likely going to be her most aggressive album yet. See, for instance, “I Disagree.”

Basically: full dark, no stars; Poppy’s out for blood, time to take cover.

VII.

In summary: the ‘scary mask’ is a protective garment for Poppy as well as an empowering one. The adoption of an artistic persona allows her to cope with criticisms and continue her work. Recently, she has adjusted her work, and thus, her persona, to something truer to herself, and “Scary Mask” was an integral part of her transition.

Well, wasn’t that fun? I know I enjoyed myself.

Wait, what? You have a question? Ah, wait—I know what you’re thinking:

“If Poppy only wears her ‘scary mask’ when she’s ‘afraid she won’t belong,’ then why is she ‘never going to take it off’?”

Well, maybe she feels like she will never belong.

[fandomfanfics12]

We Are A Family-part 24

Title: We Are A Family. Pairings: Steve x tony, Peter x Wade, Nat x Clint, Sam x Bucky. Part: 23/? Warnings: swearing, fluff, angst, eventual smut, slowburn. Summary: When Nat comes into the avengers tower with baby Peter Parker, the avengers didn’t know what they were getting themselves into. But now that Peter is here,Steve and Tony both feel protective over him. It doesn’t help that Peter hates everyone other than Steve and tony. But as Steve and tony raise Peter, they start to fall for one another. Will this superfamily work out or will it all turn to hell? A/N: lol this would’ve come sooner but i had the worst writers block and literally started this six different ways. hope you enjoy and i should update (soonish)

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17, Part 18, Part 19, Part 20, Part 21, Part 22, Part 23

Steve tried for what must have been the millionth time to tell tony what was going on. He’d tried to communicate it nearly a thousand different ways. He tried to write it, say it, sing it, draw it, he even attempted a game of charades to show peter. It didn’t work. Steve had managed to spell out the word something’s not right on a black board with sticky notes. His heart leaped up into his throat in excitement. This will work. He could show tony and tony would fix it. Tony always fixed it. But as Steve began to finish the next word, he slammed his fist into it, destroying it.

“fuck.” Steve swore and ran a hand through his hair. He took several deep and steadying breaths, he needed to calm down.

“Steve?” it was Bucky, the only person that knew what was going on.

“Stick notes nearly worked.” Steve told him and he sighed.

“We’ll figure something out.” Bucky promised.

“What’s wrong?” Steve asked after noticing how tense Bucky was, how his hands were stuffed in his pockets, how messy his hair was.

“I don’t think I ever told you but I was seeing someone, I broke it off today.” Bucky explained and Steve’s stomach twisted in churned.

“We’ll figure this out Bucky. We’ll make sure that we fix this.” Steve turned back to his sticky notes, starting the process again.

“It’s not going to work Steve.” Bucky said and Steve squeezed his eyes shut.

“It has to work.” Was all Steve said and continued trying.

Tony found the house was too empty nowadays. Peter was spending a lot of time over at May’s, which left Tony alone. The walls were covered in pictures, photographs which had captured moments where Tony and Steve had been happy. It all meant nothing.

“How did we get here Steve?” Tony wondered aloud, nothing responded. The house was still and silent. His phone vibrated and when Tony checked it, it was a message from Peter.

Staying at May’s, love you dad.

Tony stared at the message for a long time. It was good Peter was spending more time with his aunt, but Tony hated being alone in this house. He seriously wished they had bought a dog at some point. Tony ran a hand through his hair and began to clean the house. The hours ticked by as Tony cleaned everything. Until it was two in the morning. Tony stared at the time on the microwave and blinked. His mind travelled back to a different time, a different place.

“Have you ever been in love?” Steve asked and Tony bit his lip.  “Perhaps. I’ve cared deeply for people but the way I’ve felt and the way people describe it, I don’t think I’ve ever truly fallen in love with someone before.” Tony confessed and Steve stared at him for a long moment.  “Is there a reason for that?” Tony rolled out another cookie and nodded.  “When my parents died, I put up a lot of walls. I don’t let people in, it’s just easier that way. I tried to let Pepper in and we all saw how that failed. If you don’t let people in, then there’s no one who can walk out.” Tony shrugged and Steve was staring.  “That’s a really lonely way to live Tony.” “I’m used to it. But I think that may be why I connected so well with Peter. I can love him unconditionally because I know he isn’t going anywhere. You know?” And finally Tony looked up to meet Steve’s eyes.  “You need to let people in Tony.” Steve exhaled, they stared at one another for a long moment. The moment was suddenly far too deep and far too real, so Tony looked down, scooped up a bit of cookie dough and popped it into his mouth.  “You shouldn’t eat cookie dough.” “Have you ever had cookie dough Steve?” “No! I’ve always been told not to eat cookie dough and-” Tony sighed heavily.  “Clint failed as a teacher. Trust me and eat this.” And Steve reluctantly did so. Tony watched as Steve’s eyes grew wide and a grin spread out onto his face. 

Tony snapped back to the present and shook his head. Those days were long gone.

Peter felt a little guilty for staying over at May’s. But he and Wade had been doing some English homework and Wade had asked for help with chemistry and Peter had just decided it would be easier to spend the night. May herself was out at some book club, she said she would be home late.

“I still don’t get it.” Wade murmured and it was nearing two in the morning.

“it’s really not that complicated.” Peter told him gently. Wade simply scowled down at his homework.

“You know chemistry has never been my strong suit.” Wade grumbled and Peter chuckled.

“I think we should call it quits for tonight. It’s getting late.” Peter murmured and Wade nodded.

“How are your dads?” Wade asked suddenly and Peter froze.

“What?”

“Your dads, I haven’t seen them in ages. How are they?” Wade asked and Peter looked down at the floor. The only person that really knew what was going on was May. His dads hadn’t told the other avengers yet, so Peter had taken that as a sign to not talk about it. But Steve had moved out and they were still getting divorced. So it was time to let other people know.

“I thought May would’ve told you.” Peter said quietly.

“Tell me what?” Wade was oblivious as per usual.

“They’re getting a divorce.” And for once, Wade was speechless.

“They’re getting a divorce.” Peter confessed. Wade felt his eyes widen and his brain exploded. That was impossible. Tony and Steve were the definition of a long-lasting and happy marriage. They were the epitome of love. Everyone dreamed of having a relationship like theirs. They were clearly soulmates. It made no sense.

“Why?” Peter looked up at the ceiling and Wade’s heart broke for him.

“Steve cheated with Bucky.” Holy fucking shit. Wade’s jaw fell open and he shook his head.

“but he wasn’t. Steve would never!”

“Well he did.” Peter’s voice was sharp, but Wade couldn’t stop talking.

“But Steve loves Tony. They’re like couple goals. They’re the ultimate power couple! Your dads have been in love for as long as I can remember!” Wade exclaimed and Peter shrugged.

“my dads are no longer in love.”

“that’s impossible.” Wade was shaking his head and he could see Peter was getting irritated.

“Well it’s reality now.” Peter snapped and Wade inhaled sharply. Out of instinct, he took Peter’s hand. Peter inhaled sharply and looked down at their intertwined fingers.

“Are you okay?” Wade asked and Peter shook his head.

“My life is falling apart.” He whispered and Wade bit his lip.

“Peter…”

“Don’t pity me Wade. I know you’re only being nice to me because you’re living with my aunt and I know I’m useful with helping you with homework. But can we just stop pretending like you didn’t treat me like crap for years?” Wade inhaled sharply.

“I’m not pretending to be nice to you Peter.”

“Don’t lie to me Wade.” Peter sounded exhausted and Wade’s stomach performed somersaults.

“I’m not lying. I did treat you like crap, but I-“ Wade stopped himself from finishing the sentence. He could feel the anger, practically radiating off of Peter.

“You what? You pitied me? Used me? What was it that you were going to say?” Peter demanded and Wade squeezed his eyes shut.

“I missed you Pete.” Peter inhaled sharply and shook his head.

“no. you didn’t.”

There was no way that Wade had missed Peter. It wasn’t possible. And even if it were, it wasn’t allowed. Wade had had no problem walking out of Peter’s life, which had told Peter that Wade didn’t give two shits about him. So he wasn’t allowed to miss Peter.

“I did miss you Pete-“

“Don’t call me that.” Peter said sharply and Wade flinched.

“I didn’t realise it until we started hanging out again and-“

“Is that what this is? Hanging out? Because from where I’m standing, you moved into my aunt’s house and every time I come over you use me. You ask me to help with your homework or you get me to do your chores or-“

“You think I’m just using you?”

“You didn’t seem to have a problem doing that when we were friends, why would it bother you now?” Peter didn’t want to fight with Wade. But he couldn’t stop the words from coming out of his mouth.

“You done?” Wade asked with raised brows. Peter took a deep breath. He needed to calm down.

“No. I’m not done. What you did was a dick move. We were best friends for twelve years and suddenly it was like none of it mattered!” Peter shouted and Wade sighed.

“I know.” He whispered but Peter didn’t care.

“You left because, what, I wasn’t cool enough? Come on Wade, tell me your side of the story!” Peter hissed, he’d never heard Wade’s side.

“My side? Now you’re interested in my feelings?” he’d finally pissed off Wade Wilson.

“What do you have to say for yourself?” Peter demanded and Wade curled up his fists.

“I always invited you to come and hang out with my friends and i. I always tried to include you in our jokes, I always told people to back off if they started picking on you. you rejected me. You didn’t care about our jokes and you always blamed me for those other pricks. You pushed me away Pete.” Peter’s own hands curled into fists and rage burned inside of him.

“How typical. Wade Wilson, he’s never wrong, he’s Mr perfect, everyone loves him therefore everything he does is right, you’ve never accepted responsibility for anything!” Peter shouted.

“you’ve become such a brat.” Wade snapped and Peter’s blood began to boil.

“My sincerest apologies that I’m not perfect Wade. But have you had even one bad thing happen to you in the last year?” Peter demanded.

“Yes.” Wade’s voice was sad and serious that it snapped Peter out of his rage.

“Oh.” The room was silent and peter no longer knew what to say.

“I should just go home.” Peter said in the end and Wade shook his head.

“it’s late, your aunt and your dads would literally murder me if I let you leave at this hour.”

“you might murder me if I don’t.” Peter said and Wade flinched.

“I meant what I said, about missing you.” Peter squeezed his eyes shut.

“If you missed me, why didn’t you try to talk to me in the past three years?” Peter asked gently.

“I tried. But you avoided me like I was the plague. So I left you alone.” Wade admitted.

“oh.”

“Yeah.” And then the room was silent once more.

After every word, Steve would take a picture. He then emailed each picture to himself, Bucky, Nat and Peter. The sticky notes were working. Steve began to put the last of the pieces together when his phone buzzed.

Meeting at the compound. Come ASAP. Also stop sending me weird post it note messages.

The text was from Natasha. Steve shook his head. He would finish the post it note and then he would go. Steve took the picture, sent the emails and then left. Something was wrong. he could feel it in his bones. Something was terribly wrong.

“Tony. You are being uncharacteristically non-hyper verbal.” Natasha announced and Steve looked over at Tony who was lying down.

“It’s because he’s already made up his mind.” Steve said before he could stop himself.

“Boy, you know me so well.” Some of the other avengers shared looks. Steve knew they had all taken note that they’d arrived at different times, but none had commented on it yet. Steve watched as Tony stood up and rubbed the back of his head.

“Actually I’m nursing an electromagnetic headache. That’s what’s going on, Cap. It’s just pain.” Steve looked down at his hands, Tony was angry and steve knew Tony’s pain had nothing to do with a headache.

“It’s discomfort. Who’s putting coffee grounds in the disposal? Am I running a bed and breakfast for a biker gang?” Steve listened to Tony’s speech about Charles Spencer. He listened as Tony decided he would sign the accords, and the little voice in Steve’s head which had been controlling him ever since that stupid vision, told Steve to go against whatever Tony said. But it would be fine. Because he could get the pictures to Tony and then Tony would know that Steve wasn’t okay. Tony could fix things. Steve could save his marriage.

[aj-the-psycho]

The Hour: A Sanders Sides Story - Chapter 4

ANXIETY AND MELANCHOLY

TW: None

Summary: Virgil’s nineteenth birthday is approaching and Damien is sad.

AO3 Link

It was a warm evening in Florida. The sun had just starting to set, painting the kitchen and parts of the living room with its orange and red splash of light. Virgil was too lazy to turn the lights on even though it was starting to get darker. He was feeling unusually calm. It was a Friday, so he can do whatever he wants tonight and the next two days, which means he doesn’t have to think about stuff much.

Remy walked into the living room, with a cup of coffee from Starbucks in one hand—undoubtedly a crazy concoction mixed with a shot of vodka—and his ever-present sunglasses.

“Turn the lights on would you? People are gonna think your pale and skinny ass a vampire hiding in the shadows like that.” Virgil looked up at his cousin and back down at his phone. Remy let out a long sigh and plopped himself next to Virgil. They sat in a comfortable silence for a little while, doing their things separately on their phones.

Remy broke the silence with a question. “Virge, it’s your nineteenth birthday soon. Aren’t you, like, scared? Or something?”

“Am I scared? Why is that a question? And thank you, by the way, for reminding me about that. Now I won’t be able to stop thinking about it.” Virgil said with a hint of disbelief as if the answer should be obvious.

Remy could see that Virgil is scared and worried, and he probably have a million bad thoughts about the future, not just about love and relationship. Remy wasn’t like Virgil. Remy was more carefree and he didn’t really care about what people say about him. To him, what people see is what they get. If they want to know him, then they wouldn’t judge him in a negative way. For Remy, acting this way prevents fake friendships and he would—sometimes—be extra irritating to test those around him if they’re who they say they are.

“Oh girl, come on! It’s not as scary as you think y’know. When I  had my hour I wasn’t even in the same country… and I was alright!” Remy paused and looked at Virgil. Seeing that Virgil was (somewhat) paying attention, he continued, “There’s nothing for you to worry about. All you do is probably write notes, check them out and that’s it.” Remy finished, jerking his arms forward to emphasize the finality of his statement.

“We’re different though. It’s like you don’t know what fear and anxiety is. It’s not easy, okay?!” Virgil was a little frustrated to get his cousin to understand his point of view. He didn’t like this conversation, so he tried to change the subject. “On the subject of age and birthdays, you’re basically the same age as me. Why are you one year ahead?”

“I skipped a year during high school.”

Before Remy had the chance to say anything more, Virgil cut in with another question, “How come? You don’t seem that smart to me.” Remy proceeded to look just a little offended at Virgil’s words.

“Excuse me, I am much smarter than I look. I just don’t act like it, because I like it when people underestimate me. Then, bam! I do something amazing and they would be shocked.” Virgil thought he had successfully avoid the topic of his birthday, but Remy knew what he’s doing. “Virge, you’re changing the subject.”

“Uuuugggghh… can we not talk about this, please. Not now at least. You never tell anyone about your hour. Not even totya and dyadya.” Virgil was eager to change the subject again. He really didn’t want to talk about the prospects of soulmates and love and… ugh… relationships. Sure, he was never really bothered with the thought that there’s someone who is supposedly his perfect match, but he was just scared.

Remy squinted behind his sunglasses. He didn’t really understand why Virgil is scared or worried, but he knew what the anticipation felt like. As much as he wanted to convince his cousin that’s it’s going to be alright, he also didn’t want anxiety and worry to consume Virgil. So, he dropped the subject altogether.

“No… I never tell anyone, because, like, I think it’s more special if fewer people know about it. But like, if you want to know, then I’ll tell you…” Remy paused, trailing off. Virgil thought Remy was going to start his story about his hour, but, “after your birthday. After you have yours, then I’ll tell you mine.”

“What if I don’t get an hour?” Virgil mumbled, although loud enough for Remy to hear. “What if I don’t have a soulmate? What if I do have soulmate but they hate me?” Virgil was starting to get a little frantic as he continued muttering bad scenarios. For a second, Remy didn’t know what to do, so he just listened to Virgil listing all the possibilities of bad things happening. “What if I’m the one who doesn’t like them? What would happen then? What if we just don’t—”

“Time out! Pump the brakes! Uspokoysya, dvoyurodnyy brat! If you keep thinking about all the ‘what if’ scenarios you can’t have fun! True, there are endless possibilities of bad things happening,” Virgil flinched a little, “but there are also endless possibilities of the good things happening. So, don’t think about it too much.”

“Remus! I’m just scared okay? I’m—I just don’t want things to go wrong…” Virgil was getting really uncomfortable, but he also knew that maybe he needed this conversation with Remy to convince his brain that things could go in good directions too.

Remy knew that Virgil was getting more frustrated when he had used his Russian name instead of his English nickname. “Really? What could go wrong?!”

“Oh, khuy znáet. I can probably make a list!”

----------

Damien was confused. It’s been two weeks after Patton first met Logan and they’ve met about four times. They get along surprisingly nicely, considering how different those two are. However, Damien was confused about what he was feeling. He was both happy and sad. He was happy that his brother found his match and Patton is now much happier than usual. Even Damien at first a little surprised that a guy like Patton, who is blindly optimistic and is a literal sunshine, can get even happier than before. Damien was delighted to see his brother so bright.

Sometimes though, he would suddenly feel down for no apparent reason. He would feel somewhat dead, like he couldn’t do anything. Actually, Damien knows why he was feeling that way, but he didn’t want to admit it, even to himself. He didn’t tell his brother about this either. But of course, Patton noticed that his brother was feeling down. He also could tell that Damien didn’t want him to know, so Patton played dumb while still trying to lift his brother’s spirits up.

Damien was sitting on the living room couch, staring out the window, enjoying the feel of warm sunlight hitting his skin. It’s going to be dark soon. He was feeling okay earlier that day, but when he got back from class an hour ago, he didn’t feel so okay anymore.

“Hey Dee! I was—” Patton exclaimed cheerfully, then stopped himself when he sensed that Damien was not in a cheerful mood.

“You were…” Damien prompted Patton to continue.

“I was thinking,” Patton continued though much softer than before, his story forgotten and now he’s focusing on cheering his brother up, “we should have a movie marathon tonight. Tomorrow’s a weekend anyway right? And we could also make popcorn and hot chocolate. Oh! Or we could order pizza! Or both! How does that sound?”

“Um…” Damien knew that Patton knew how he was feeling at that moment. He also knew what Patton was trying to do. Damien considered lying to his brother about his feelings, because he didn’t like talking about them. But he also knew that Patton will see through his lies. “It sounds like you’re aware of something that I’m not.” There. Lie of omission. He didn’t say anything relating to how he was feeling so, he hoped that Patton wouldn’t talk to him about them or at least understand that he didn’t want to.

Patton’s eyes soften hearing what his brother said. Damien was not detached with his feelings. Patton knew this. But, Damien often lies about his emotions (and other things too) to the people around him and even to himself. Damien would convince himself that he’s okay, that he’s fine even when he himself knows it’s not true. Patton really wanted his brother to see that it’s not healthy to do that. He tried to talk to his brother about it, but Damien would deflect the subject.

“Well…” Patton started but he was unsure of how to bring the subject around. “I just thought you seem really sad lately and—” Damien interrupted before Patton could finish his sentence.

“No. I’m fine, I swear.” Damien said firmly, keeping eye contact to convince Patton. But eyes never lie. Patton saw that his eyes were dim. It didn’t have its usual shine. He had a feeling he knew why Damien was feeling this way, but he wasn’t sure. Patton looked at his brother, eyebrows low in a silent statement of “no you’re not.”

Damien lied anyway even though he knew his brother would see the truth. He really didn’t like talking about his feelings. He didn’t avoid his emotions, he just didn’t like showing it because he didn’t like to look vulnerable. “I swear, I’m okay. I’m perfectly fine.” This time, Damien refused to look at Patton in the eyes.

“Alright, I’ll go make some popcorn and hot chocolate. You go pick the movie.”

“No!” Damien exclaimed, surprising Patton, then smiled, “You go put on the movie, I’ll make the stuff. Don’t want you to burn yourself again.”

Patton smiled in relief and went to the small table next to the TV where they store all their movies. “I’m putting on your favorite, Dee.” Damien hummed in response, already heading to the kitchen.

Fifteen minutes later, they were sitting in the living room in dim lighting, surrounded with piles of blankets and pillows, plus two mugs of hot chocolate and a mountain of buttered popcorn, the opening of ‘Now You See Me’ playing. Damien have always been fascinated with magic tricks and illusions, he always thought that they’re clever.

“Thanks,” Damien whispered to Patton who was leaning against him.

“Anytime, bro.”

Damien tried to forget everything and just focus on the movie, but he couldn’t even do that. He felt tired. He felt drained and didn’t have any energy. Not wanting to upset his brother, he sat in silence, looking at the movie without watching it, hearing the characters but not listening. ‘Why am I like this?’ he thought to himself. But of course, he knew why.

**********

Remus is pronounced [REY-moos] and roll your 'r' ---

These are some of the vocabs I used for Remy and Virgil in this chapter (I used the latin spelling because it's much easier to read rather than the Russian alphabets):

Uspokoysya, dvoyurodnyy brat Успокойся, двоюродный брат [Calm down, cousin]

Khuy znáet. Хуй зна́ет. [Fuck knows.]

Totya Тётя [Aunt]

Dyadya Дядя [Uncle]